Mike
Thanks for your kind words about PP, which is some of the most worthwhile flying that anyone can do.
They have caused me to think in what is perhaps a bit of a mischievous way about feats of navigation and the context in which they are achieved. With my tongue somewhat embedded in my cheek: as the Navigation Award now seems to need a new recipient, and although I am not a member of the LAA, perhaps I might propose one?
I have just heard that the 97 year old Pathfinder Force navigator that I have been flying to commemoration events for a few years is now too unwell to make the flight from Cornwall to Doncaster for the Remembrance Day Service this year. The last time we flew together, he made it into my aircraft, despite being wheelchair-bound most of the time, because he has no other way of getting to the events paying tribute to his comrades and was determined to do so regardless.
Basis for the award? Of course it might be necessary to stretch the definition of a “Light Aircraft” a bit: but after having navigated a Lancaster for 30 missions he then transferred to the PFF and a Mosquito (which is light compared to a Lanc!
) for 35 missions with no GPS, radio aids that were being jammed, using star sights a lot of the time, at night and with people shooting at him. Of course he wouldn’t claim to have been solo having had the benefit of a very good pilot actually flying the aircraft.
But nonetheless, that really is navigation and puts the aids we use routinely today into context.
Edit: Oh, and by the way: he was only entitled to wear a single RAF wing. That is along with his DFC, DFM and campaign medals.