Getting unlost (was Training Q - Is this appropriate)

vincent p. norris writes:

I passed my private in 2000. Haven't had any problems with pilotage
since (dead reckoning is another matter. I figure if I need to use
dead reckoning, I need to file IFR).

Meaning no offense, Ari, I'm puzzled by that response.

A number of people seem to be. My bad. I should have qualified that
with "if I need to use dead reckoning *for inflight navigation*..."

Ari.

--
Elections only count as free and trials as fair if you can lose money
betting on the outcome.

"Alan Gerber" wrote in message
...
In rec.aviation.student vincent p. norris wrote:
I'm not an instructor, but it's my impression that students are no
longer taught dead reckoning or pilotage.
I don't know about other students, but I'm certaily learning about them.
We're just starting cross-countries, and we're starting with pilotage.
My CFI specifically told me we're not even going to use VORs at first, to
make sure I actually look outside.

Yup, this is the best way to teach (and the way I was taught). The PPL
syllabus does include a basic lump about how to use radio nav aids, but this
should always be secondary to looking out of the window. Now I've got my
licence, and my IMC rating, I do tend to tune the navaids to something
useful just for the sake of it (and it's something interesting to show your
passengers) but I fly by looking out of the window if I'm in VMC. The only
exception is if it's a nice day and nobody needs the aeroplane straight
after me, in which case I'll do the instrument thing properly and have a
play at some holds, or an ILS approach (Norwich ATC are brilliantly obliging
if you want to practice a talkdown, an instrument approach, radar vectors,
or anything of the sort - even if the runway in use is the opposite to the
one with the ILS).

This said, the NDB/ADF was very useful in my PPL final test. I was
navigating by eye, but noticed the examiner tuning the ADF into the beacon
of the airfield I was supposed to be navigating to - presumably because I
had the map and he didn't, and the field we were aiming at was a small grass
strip (with an NDB). It was reassuring to see, out of the corner of my eye,
the little green needle pointing in the direction I was hoping it would!

D.

Alan-

I totally agree with you, even to a larger scale. Instructors as of late
(and partially driven by pressure from students) are not teaching these
"building block" fundamental skills which are essential before tackling
radio navigation. I think its a shame. Basic pilotage is so essential that
it absolutely has to be taught from the beginning. As I recall, it is also
still a part of the Practical Test Standards.

Another place I see this happening is the IFR instruction of NDB approaches.
Most students do not fly them for practice because they wont have to fly it
in a practical test if the ADF box is placarded INOP (which they
conveniently do before the test). The rationale behind this is (a) they are
"too difficult" and (b) the ADF navaids are being removed in the future so
why learn something like it. IMO, its a shame b/c it teaches students a lot
in terms of orientation, building block skills, and basic airmanship, etc.



"Alan Gerber" wrote in message
...
In rec.aviation.student vincent p. norris wrote:
I'm not an instructor, but it's my impression that students are no
longer taught dead reckoning or pilotage.

I don't know about other students, but I'm certaily learning about them.
We're just starting cross-countries, and we're starting with pilotage.

My CFI specifically told me we're not even going to use VORs at first, to
make sure I actually look outside.

--
Alan Gerber
gerber AT panix DOT com

Pilotage and ded reckoning have always been emphasized by my CFI's and when
I had an electrical failure in a Sundowner in IMC I was glad that it had
been so emphasized. Another pilot and I had taken a Saturday trip. When we
were returning the electrical bus failed. After flying triangles for a few
minutes, I climbed on top of a solid cloud layer, flew northeast toward the
front (we had taken the time to understand the weather picture before we
took off) where we found broken and then scattered clouds, descended and,
with a ded reckoning guesstimate of where we were and use of our VFR charts
and pilotage, navigated to the Morristown NJ airport and landed safely.

Frankly, this line of comments concerns me.

Walt Ellison, CP-AS/MEL-I

"Alan Gerber" wrote in message
...
In rec.aviation.student vincent p. norris wrote:
I'm not an instructor, but it's my impression that students are no
longer taught dead reckoning or pilotage.

I don't know about other students, but I'm certaily learning about them.
We're just starting cross-countries, and we're starting with pilotage.

My CFI specifically told me we're not even going to use VORs at first, to
make sure I actually look outside.

--
Alan Gerber
gerber AT panix DOT com

"CB" wrote in message
...
I don't know about other students, but I'm certaily learning about them.
We're just starting cross-countries, and we're starting with pilotage.

Quite right too. Radio nav aids are useful when you're flying VFR, but even
when I'm flying along a radial I like to know where I am, partly out of
interest (helps you get to know useful visual features for future VFR
flights) and partly because if the engine quits it's nice to be able to tell
ATC that you're doing a forced landing "two miles east of XX" instead of
"28.3DME on radial XXX from VOR YYY".

Looking out of the window is also useful in our club C152 which, I'm told (I
don't fly it) has radio nav aids that are so poor, a magnetised pin dangling
on a bit of string would be more use.

D.

"Rob Perkins" wrote in message
...
I found myself disoriented and lost over my own training practice area
just last week. It took me a minute to triangulate rivers I could see
with the chart.

You have to be careful around Norfolk, where I fly a lot, if you're using
disused airfields as sanity checks of your course. Last Saturday is a
classic example - I had to double-check that Foulsham was really Foulsham,
and not Oulton.

(Incidentally, you can tell someone who spends a lot of time instructing in
Norfolk; our CFI knows each disused airfield in the area by the patterns of
the chicken sheds on the runways ...).

D.

"David Cartwright" wrote in message
...
You have to be careful around Norfolk, where I fly a lot, if you're using
disused airfields as sanity checks of your course. Last Saturday is a
classic example - I had to double-check that Foulsham was really Foulsham,
and not Oulton.

Is that where Oulton Park is? Doesn't that have a racetrack on it?
Or are they different places?

Paul

"Paul Sengupta" wrote in message
...
Is that where Oulton Park is? Doesn't that have a racetrack on it?
Or are they different places?

Nah, Oulton Park is in the Cheshire area, I believe. To add to the confusion
there's the Oulton airfield I mentioned, which is just west of Norwich, then
there's Oulton Broad and its associated village which are over toward
Lowestoft.

D.