Have you ever...

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 20:48:47 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote in
PGA7e.14356$xL4.13659@attbi_s72::

If, in ten years and nearly 1000 hours of flying, I've never needed to
figure out my position by looking at the face of my VOR, as if I'd suddenly
awakened in my plane and didn't have a clue where I was, what the hell is it
doing on the written exam for Private Pilot?

Suppose you are navigating solely by GPS. What are you going to do in
the event the military chooses to disable the GPS system while you're
airborne (or a solar storm renders GPS unusable) and you find yourself
above an undercast? If the aircraft isn't equipped with ADF, and you
haven't been trained to use VOR navigation, you'd have to request a DF
steer from FSS, or if you're located in an area of ATC radar coverage,
vectors.

Jay Honeck wrote:

You figured out your position using VORs? What decade was this? ;-)

Can I do that? Sure. Can I name the last time I needed to know that?
Nope. Can I even name the last time I did it? Nope.

If, in ten years and nearly 1000 hours of flying, I've never needed to
figure out my position by looking at the face of my VOR, as if I'd suddenly
awakened in my plane and didn't have a clue where I was, what the hell is it
doing on the written exam for Private Pilot? Who in the world uses VORs
for daily flight anymore?

Well, hell, who uses pilotage anymore? Hasn't everybody got a GPS these days?
Why should anyone be required to learn any form of navigation that isn't
state-of-the-art?

/sarcasm

What will you do when that black box fails? I want to be able to use *any*
navigational equipment that happens to be in the plane I'm flying, and *you'd*
better be able to also ('cause I don't want you running into me while you're
trying to remember how it works).

When they disable the VOR network, *then* they should take all the questions
about it off the exams, but not until then.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

Michael wrote:

Consider slow flight. Why do we teach it?

According to several of my instructors, we teach it because if you get trapped
by deteriorating weather, it's a lot safer to be looking for a good place to
land at slow speed than at cruise.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

Is this what you're saying:

If we don't aim to "get more people into the sky,"
we won't need to train safe pilots.

If not, what do you mean?

Because general aviation as we know it will be dead in ten years if we don't
start "filling the skies" with pilots. In short, it won't matter what kind
of pilots we're training -- safe or not -- if we don't get more applicants
for the PPL.

When the Baby Boomers start to lose their medicals, the GA infrastructure
(FBOs, flight schools, avionics shops) -- already teetering on the brink --
will simply collapse if we don't get a whole bunch of new pilots trained and
in the sky.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Suppose you are navigating solely by GPS. What are you going to do in
the event the military chooses to disable the GPS system while you're
airborne (or a solar storm renders GPS unusable) and you find yourself
above an undercast? If the aircraft isn't equipped with ADF, and you
haven't been trained to use VOR navigation, you'd have to request a DF
steer from FSS, or if you're located in an area of ATC radar coverage,
vectors.

And if the sun suddenly went supernova, I'd be in big trouble, too.

Why do I suspect that the old A/N radio range pilots were saying the same
thing back in the '50s, when the Feds started decommissioning them?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

What will you do when that black box fails? I want to be able to use *any*
navigational equipment that happens to be in the plane I'm flying, and
*you'd* better be able to also ('cause I don't want you running into me
while you're trying to remember how it works).

When they disable the VOR network, *then* they should take all the
questions about it off the exams, but not until then.

I didn't say anything about not training pilots to use VORs, nor did I say
to take all VOR questions off the test.

I was referring specifically to the pages and pages (ad nauseum) of study
questions that show you a VOR instrument, totally out of context with
anything else, and ask you to determine where you are in relation to the
transmitter.

First of all, if I'm flying along and the "black box" goes dead, I've been
following my position on my sectional -- so I have a pretty good idea where
I am from the get-go. It's not like I'm going to turn on my VOR with NO
knowledge of where I am. I will know approximately where I am in relation
to the transmitter before I even turn it on (after all -- I will need my
sectional to even determine which VOR frequency to tune in -- duh), and will
thus be able to easily and quickly determine my position from/to it. From
that point on, reading a VOR needle is child's play.

The point is, get stupid "gotcha!" questions like these off the written
test. They are put there to confuse and eliminate candidates, nothing
more, nothing less -- and the knowledge they purport to "test" isn't even
represented well by the questions.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

I was referring specifically to the pages and pages (ad nauseum) of study
questions that show you a VOR instrument, totally out of context with
anything else, and ask you to determine where you are in relation to the
transmitter.

The point is, get stupid "gotcha!" questions like these off the written
test.

It's been a long time since I studied for the PPC written, but I don't recall a
single navigation question that was a "gotcha." Every single one had one
obviously correct answer that was obviously correct if you had any idea how the
things worked. Now, I took my written just before my 300 mile cross-country, so
I had been using a VOR for some time. If you found them to be "gotchas", I'd say
you didn't really have a handle on VOR navigation at the time.

As far as there being pages of study questions, that's simply because there are
ten study questions for every one that gets selected for the exam you take, and
all of those ten are basically the same. If you could've handled one, you
could've answered any of them.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

It's been a long time since I studied for the PPC written, but I don't
recall a single navigation question that was a "gotcha." Every single one
had one obviously correct answer that was obviously correct if you had any
idea how the things worked. Now, I took my written just before my 300 mile
cross-country, so I had been using a VOR for some time. If you found them
to be "gotchas", I'd say you didn't really have a handle on VOR navigation
at the time.

As I said, I scored in the upper 90s, some ten years ago, and have no
trouble using VORs. But they *did* take a significant amount of time to get
proficient at using, and I hope that I'm the last generation of pilots to
have to rely on such an antiquated system for primary navigation.

Since nowadays VFR pilots have little use for VORs, (I don't turn them on --
ever -- except for the occasional practice VOR approach), to put those kind
of questions on the Private written exam is just another way to weed out
potential pilots.

I wonder if VOR tracking is tested in the new Sport Pilot curriculum?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:
Since nowadays VFR pilots have little use for VORs, (I don't turn them
on --
ever -- except for the occasional practice VOR approach), to put those
kind
of questions on the Private written exam is just another way to weed out
potential pilots.

I love these general and absolutely correct conclusions based upon a
statistical sampling of one.

Jay, so what percentage of people fail their knowledge tests? Then what
percentage of those people failed because of questions you believe shouldn't
be there. I think we'd be approaching 0-1% - at the most.

Hilton

Jay Honeck wrote:
Who in the world uses VORs
for daily flight anymore?


Those of us who refuse to pay $400/yr "Garmin tax" for data collected
and produced at taxpayer expense.

Ross Oliver
Cheap ******* Aviator