Foxmoth,
My sincere apologies – I misread your ‘handle’ and in no way was attempting to display a ‘juvenile sense of humor’.
My response to the original post by FFB was based on experience in remote areas a long time ago. In that post I pointed out that variations in windspeed and direction encountered on long legs rendered the use of time markers useless. Satellite imagery (in the sixties and seventies) was in its infancy, and in a country this size ‘met’ observers are few and far between. And yes, the forecast winds were not always accurate. Nor are they today.
No, I don’t use six minute intervals. In fact locating suitable features in central Australia at fifty mile intervals can be a challenge unless you dog-leg all over the country side. Ten mile markers serve to quickly calculate the distance between such features and determine G/S. They also enable a quick check of ones probable position by estimating the distance flown over time since the last checkpoint. They are excellent for calculating 1:60 solutions (a distance not time calculation). Most of all they are still on the chart next day or next week when you are tasked to fly the same route, perhaps in a faster or slower aircraft!
Finally you seem to have some aversion to the term ‘distance marker’. To quote a 1983 publication by T. THOM on navigation: “To allow in-flight estimation of flight progress…put in 10 NM markers. Some people prefer to use time markings…but these change from day to day depending on the wind, the aeroplane and so on.” They are measures of distance and not time!
In teaching students I draw on tried and tested practical experience, not necessarily the teachings from a text book. After all the luxury of a classroom does not replicate the confined space of a cockpit bouncing in turbulence and pressed by the urgency of bad weather and/or fuel limitations! Ten mile markers keep it simple.