Roger Long wrote:

Are these casual attitudes towards compass accuracy I'm encountering common?

I've found that the CFIs who have flown with me tend to assume that the compass is
very accurate. If I turn 90 degrees and the compass and DG don't agree, they assume a
problem in the vacuum system. Mechanics, on the other hand, seem to have the idea
that 15 or 20 degrees of error is ok. None of them want the job of swinging the
compass properly on a taildragger.

Now, I haven't asked very many mechanics to do this. After striking out a couple of
times, I just started resetting the DG to the ground track on my LORAN on long trips.

By the way, my compass inaccuracies are caused by adding all the avionics without
re-swinging the compass.

George Patterson
I childproofed my house, but they *still* get in.