"JGalban via AviationKB.com" u32749@uwe wrote in
news:7ddba2d81cb24@uwe:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

Really. there will come a time when they'll look at us the way we'd
look at someone who went to sea in a canoe.


I think that's already happening, particularly in the area of
navigation.
I've had more than one pilot comment with amazement on the fact that
we used to navigate across the country without GPS. Particularly in
areas where radio navigation is not available (mountains).
Apparently, finding unfamiliar airports without the magic box
pointing you right at it, is some sort of magical feat. I personally
know pilots that wouldn't consider flying a cross-country trip without
an operable GPS.

I know. I still fly with no GPS and people look at me like I have two
heads.
I had to get someone to prop my Luscombe before a pasage over a farly
large body of water a few years back. After a few pulls this commercial
pilot was clearly not able to do it, so I put him in th eairplane and
briefed him on how to work everything and how the procedure worked. He
looked around and asked me how I intended to get where I was going
without navaids ( it was a fifty mile crossing) and I pointed at the
compass.
I went off with him thinking I was an idiot. I made a point of dropping
into his office ( he was a policeman flying an Islander) the next week
in my 737!

Remember when flying a GA airplane across an ocean was a huge
navigational
challenge (HF being what it is)?

HF is useless for nav. You need to be able to combine a few techniques
to do something like a transoceanic flight. You'd have to be a very
special kind of idiot to do it solely reliant on anything, especially a
GPS. If you're not reasonably confident you can at least find a beach on
arrival after having lost everything but needle ball airspeed and
compass you have no business being there. I say reasonably because
anything can happen.

My local library has bound copies of the aviation mags going back to
the
'20s. Since my plane's equipment is generally not much better than
the state of the art in the 40s, I can often relate to those old
articles.

Several years back I saw an old Narco radio (Superhomer) in an
aviation
museum and was surprised because I'd removed an identical one from my
airplane only a few years before.

He he. I taught a couple of kids to fly in their Dad's PA-12 at Pontiac
a long time ago. It had a whistle stop radio and that was all. Pontiac
was a very busy airport. We never did take off and landings there, but
of course we had to depart and arrive. I couldn't reach it from the
back, so a lot of the first few lessons were just getting the students
to tune it. It got so every time th etower heard a carrier wave they
said "88M, if that;s you, you're cleared to a right base 27R and cleared
to land"
It should have been in a museum even then, but it was fun!

Bertie