Getting unlost (was Training Q - Is this appropriate)

"Alan Gerber" wrote in message
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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.