Jim Logajan wrote in
:
Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
How many know the 1/60 rule?
I didn't - but then I'm not yet past student pilot. Luckily google
yields this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_in_60_rule
It's not widely taught these day, along with a host of other nav tricks
that were common knowledge years ago in pre radio days.
This one is one of the most useful i can think of though. Another
example would be if you are flying along an airway and there's a navaid
roughly abeam you you can figure your groundspeed by counting the time
it takes to cross radials.
One other simple nav trick is to be aware of how many degrees a
particular point of your airplane is form your eye position. To make
this as accurate as possible, you have to start out with standard
position for your eye, i.e, make sure you make the observation from the
same positon and not with your seat slid forward one time and back the
next.
Then measure, using wahtever sort of device is to hand, the point of
your aircraft that would be 5 deg left of the aircraft's centerline. You
could move the airplane around on the ground to do this using a distant
ground refernce point, or you could use a homemade sextant or whatever
way you care to come up with. You can do it on cowl parts, wings, and
tail. The fore and aft ones are most useful, but it's handy to have some
reference on the wings as well. When you know the references, you can
easily calculate your drift by seing whcih refernce line remains steady
with a ground refernce as you fly along. The poiint that remains steady
on your aircraft is indicating your drift. This is especially handy if
you're leaving your last ground ref points behind you like on an
overwater flight. You can get an actual drift by looking behind you as
you head away from land.
A lot of old time long distance flyers would have had lines painted on
various parts for this very purpose, especially on the stab. I think the
Douglas world Cruisers had them, for instance, and a lot of the Benidix
and McPherson racers would have had them.
Bertie