Pilot Follows GPS - Lands on Road

I'll tell this little story from about 1 1/2 year ago. The one time I had a very hard time finding an airport was when I was using a GPS, navigating direct to. Fat, Dumb and happy I just followed my little magenta line, made my 10 mile call on CTAF and still couldn't see the airport. Called five, couldn't find it. Guess where I was when I finally found it? RIGHT ON TOP OF IT! Thank god there was no traffic in the area, I'm not sure pilots in the pattern would appreciate a confused pilot blasting into the pattern. I learned alot about resource management that day. Just because you are using GPS or VOR to navigate does not mean you shouldn't be aware of your surroundings by using a sectional and looking out the window when VFR. 99.999% of VFR flying in a light GA aircraft should be done by looking outside the aircraft and that is something I failed miserably at that day. To be fair to myself, it was when I was working on my instrument, so I kinda forgot how to look outside ;)
 
Maybe I am old school - but the look of the G1000 scares the poop out of me. Just something about looking out and cross checking VORs makes me happy!
 
Nigel Croker said:
I know I am about to get flamed for this, but I feel the PTS needs a redo and the PVT and INST PTS should require the equipt. to be steam guages, and slant A only. GPS and glass should not be introduced until either Comm. or advanced HP or complex training. With the advent of the G1000 and Avidine suites, the whole point of the solo cross country flights simply became moot. The sad part is pilots like this guy might not survive if they ever have to fly in IMC on the standby 3 (or partial panel), or are likely to use a non-terrain gps in marginal conditions to go direct, right into a tower/antenna. We are handy capping new pilots under the guise of situational awareness, so much that the GPS is a crutch. Like anything else if you use the equipment properly it can be great, but use it wrong and you are on the news (on your cellphone in your spiffy uniform walking around looking like a bonehead, if your lucky).
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You're not gonna get flamed for that. Some of us even intentionally looked for old airplanes with minimal avionics when we started our training. :)
 
ocdflyboy said:
I guess nothing rang a bell when he never saw runway numbers, aiming point, VASI/PAPI, possible hangars, wind sock....

and again, nothing rang a bell when he passed parked cars, blew through the stop sign and came to a stop in a handicapped parking spot.

:insane:
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"His Cirrus SR20 plane hit some mailboxes, small trees and a fence. No one was injured in the landing"

NAILED IT! :rawk:
 
The CFI should really some heat for this, or the school, whoever's policy it is to send a student to an airpark runway. I remember it being hard to pick out a small airport when I was a low time pilot. On my IFR cross country I broke out and started lining up with a water landing strip. Even more recently I have lined up with a field parallel to the runway, fortunately for me I have realized my error before tires touched down or prop hit fence.

Just a guess but I am thinking the piloting and English skills of the foreign trainees are such that they keep them away from real airports to avoid incidents that would embarrass the school. They might want to rethink that policy.

I recently flew with a Korean FO. It was a TDY assignment so I was new to the part of the country and the run. He had a foreflight powered IPAD that he relied on for navigation., as we were in a /A aircraft. He was so reliant on it, I started taking it away from him and make him navigate his way traditionally. The last straw was on a morning flight. Its the FOs leg, with an arrival just before sunrise. We break out a ways out see the Apt beacon. The FO turns to set up for something like an 5+ mile final, descending for TPA. In the process he looses sight of the airport, pulls the IPAD off the dash and starts searching for the APT using it. The APT has a VOR and ILS both of which I have plugged in. After that the IPAD was used only for MY inflight entertainment.
 
Ugh, another idiot cirrus pilot that continues to give a bad name to the rest of us who have to fly this airplane. Way to go!
 
I_Money said:
Maybe I am old school - but the look of the G1000 scares the poop out of me. Just something about looking out and cross checking VORs makes me happy!
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It's a great tool if you actually know how to use it, but can be your worst enemy if you don't know how to use it.
 
I think this fella is to blame:

allstate_mayhem_douglas_fir.jpg
 
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