Pilotage/Dead Rec

jhugz

jhugz

Well-Known Member
Well I felt like posting this thread because of a couple threads JRH and Blizz posted just to show up and coming JC pilots that instructors are not perfect, we make mistakes like everyone else, and we are always learning too.

Well after a year of flight instruction in G1000 airplanes or at the very least an airplane w/ a kln94 w/ a MFD I flew X-Country in an airplane without a GPS. Now this wouldn't be a huge deal if I didn't fly into a airport inside the DC SFRA underneath DCA & IAD Bravo Airspace. Well I was pretty damn nervous but tried to not show my student my emotions. To make a long story short it turned out real well w/ no violations or bent metal. Made me feel pretty damn good that I was still able to look out the window w/ a map and figure out where the hell I was at in an area I'm not very familiar w/.

Point/Moral of the Story: Don't become complacent like me. GPS/MFD's are there for SA not a primary source of navigation. Always no where you are on a sectional so that you can get back home if all else fails.
 
jhugz said:
Point/Moral of the Story: Don't become complacent like me. GPS/MFD's are there for SA not a primary source of navigation. Always no where you are on a sectional so that you can get back home if all else fails.
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The plan I've be flying has no turn coordinator, artificial horizon, VOR, NDB, or VSI. It does have a compass, and more importantly, windows :) I don't like being beyond gliding distance from the airport in it anyway...
 
I always tell my students,

"If they made it across the English Channel with a compass and a stopwatch, you can make it 50 NM."

If you spend 3 hours+ doing a flight plan to calculate a heading/course, don't spend every second of the flight trying to recalculate it.

I know the feeling though, trying to figure out if you're going to accidentally bust airspace, or fly through an active restricted area.

About 6 months ago, I took about 3 weeks off for the summer. My first flight back from vacation, I nearly busted class bravo in Orlando. Great example for my brand new students. I had mistaken one lake for another, which is stupid, but I did it. It was a good lesson for my students and myself.
 
jhugz said:
Point/Moral of the Story: Don't become complacent like me. GPS/MFD's are there for SA not a primary source of navigation. Always no where you are on a sectional so that you can get back home if all else fails.
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My point exactly. I had a pvt student show up to his checkride not with his VFR Nav log but with a DUATS computer plan and told the FAA examiner
"with all electronics available, pilotage and deadreckoning is bulls***"
 
After doing airwork on a local flight a asked one of CFI students to take me back home when we finished. First thing he did was reach up to direct enter the airport. I stopped him and made him find his own way home. He did, but before a lot of flustering and confusion.

SA...Good people have it.
 
poser765 said:
After doing airwork on a local flight a asked one of CFI students to take me back home when we finished. First thing he did was reach up to direct enter the airport.
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If the GPS is there, I'll do that for no other reason than to give the tower an accurate distance of how far out I am (if it is somewhere that I don't know the landmarks).
 
drunkenbeagle said:
If the GPS is there, I'll do that for no other reason than to give the tower an accurate distance of how far out I am (if it is somewhere that I don't know the landmarks).
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Oh there is nothing wrong with that at all! It is a tool in the airplane...so use it. But don't lose the ability to operate without it. There shouldn't ever be a time on a local flight no more than 15 miles from the field when you can't navigate back home using the eye ball.

Especially as an instructor. If you are learning to be one, then you need to learn how to do all the work you need to do to teach and still keep current on where you are. I'll have my cfi students make sure the keep us within about a 2-3 mile box at all times with out me having to turn them.
 
ocdflyboy said:
My point exactly. I had a pvt student show up to his checkride not with his VFR Nav log but with a DUATS computer plan and told the FAA examiner
"with all electronics available, pilotage and deadreckoning is bulls***"
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Did the examiner get an evil gleam in his eye and grin? :eek:
 
drunkenbeagle said:
If the GPS is there, I'll do that for no other reason than to give the tower an accurate distance of how far out I am (if it is somewhere that I don't know the landmarks).
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True, GPS is a tool and should be used but if it is your home airport and you don't know that (i.e.)bridge is 10 miles out and the Wal-mart is a two mile right base...using the GPS means you are working too hard.\
Pointing land marks out to students is all part of the learning process.


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poser765 said:
After doing airwork on a local flight a asked one of CFI students to take me back home when we finished. First thing he did was reach up to direct enter the airport. I stopped him and made him find his own way home. He did, but before a lot of flustering and confusion.

SA...Good people have it.
Click to expand...

When I was a student pilot, fairly early on, my instructor told me to take him back home (rather than point me in the right direction as he had until that point). I didn't have a clue where we were or how to use the GPS. I did learn from that experience however. I now know where I am when I'm flying. :)
 
I've never flown a TAA or used any kind of GPS mainly cause I'm cheap although I do love technology and think the G1000, Avidyne and other similar systems are amazing. I'm a VFR pilot and most, if not all of the fun to me, is looking out the window. Especially in Southern California. There's a lot to see, not to mention a lot of traffic as well. Jhugz thanks for posting your lesson in humility.
 
i gotta say, as a guy on the road who is NEVER at a "home airport"... GPS is a lifesaving tool for me, keeping my butt from busting all kinds of airspaces and such.

if i had paper copies of every chart of where i fly, my plane would be over max gross.
 
I am planning a weekend cross country to Austin. I'm not nervous, just cautious. I planned the entire route on a sectional, wrote down some VOR station frequencies and will proably direct enter enter the route on the GNS 530. However, the sectional will stay firmly clipped on the knee board.
 
ralphbrynard said:
I'm not nervous, just cautious. I planned the entire route on a sectional, wrote down some VOR station frequencies and will proably direct enter enter the route on the GNS 530. However, the sectional will stay firmly clipped on the knee board.
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Why not just do it without the GNS? Or even with NO NAVAIDS? (I know.....the gall of him to state that!!! Blasphemous!) :)
 
MikeD said:
Why not just do it without the GNS? Or even with NO NAVAIDS? (I know.....the gall of him to state that!!! Blasphemous!) :)
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He is doing it without any Nav-Aids or GPS. They are there strictly for SA. The way it should be. Good job.
 
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