I LOVE a good GPS thread and fortunately we seem to get one every couple of months
When I was at school we weren't allowed to use calcuators. There's one on my desk but I don't use it all the time. Conversely, I could work out 17/13 to four decimal places on a piece of paper, but why would I when a reliable, accurate machine can do it for me?
Similarly, I fly with a GPS. I don't use it all the time, although its always on when I'm flying and its always got my route programmed into it. Where I do use it is when I am getting close to a field that I have yet to get a visual fix on. Looking for grass strips can be difficult enough in the middle of the summer. A GPS set to auto zoom makes things a lot easier and lets me enjoy the flight without going through someones dropzone. I also use it if I am passing close to CAS. I use it here to cross reference that the village/railway bridge/road junction on my map is exactly the one I think it is.
During normal flight, I am happy to decide "yes, that is Wickham Market" etc and only use the GPS to check ground speed. When flying microlights and other "cool" ships, wind makes a big difference to fuel required and a 1000ft change in altitude can make a big difference to GS. GPS is brilliant for getting the best ground speed as you see the results of an altitude change instantly, rather than having to wait for the next waypoint.
That bloke flying the channel? I don't reckon he had a GPS. His problem was that he was trying to re-sharpen his pencil with his Gerber, but the Warrior had a slight turn to the right
