As suspected, a consensus of views is emerging through practical application of the CAA standards info but is it really in the interest of the student? Also isn't it really a bit much that none of us here has been able to say exactly what we are required to teach and we are all saying "well my interpretation is....". Picture the nightmare of an IRT or GFT where the requirements were this lose or ill-defined....
From Watford's post -
"The applicant will be asked to intercept and maintain a track To or From a suitable VOR or ADF. He will be expected to tune and identify the aid correctly and to operate within the promulgated range. "
If you are to do justice to the subject you need to do a lot of theory on the various system characteristics. You then have the extra 5 flying hours to teach the art of NDB tracking, lets assume +/- 15 degrees of accuracy (ie larger than the IMC requirement) and VOR tracking and also then the position fixing. Add this to the reality of student availability (ie not flying every week). There is a good possibility of exceeding the hours if you act with integrity and make sure that the student is properly trained. After all, is there any point in half teaching them to use the equipment?
As the correct identification of the aids requires a knowledge of morse (in the UK, as the only reference to morse is normally on the reverse side of the kneeboard strapped to the student's leg) it would appear we are onto a bit of a loser from the outset.
Just one more thing and I'll shut up. If this is being done in the spirit of the IF part of the training, ie wx goes pants, PPL finds themselves in cloud, 180 turn, get the hell out of Dodge; then why are we teaching them to use navaids and possibly fly themselves further into the poo? Wouldn't it be a better bet to encourage them to get on the radio and get radar vectors, maybe even to the point where they do a couple of SRA's or PAR's and save the radio nav for continuation training. I mean there are more than a few who will fly something post-licence that won't even have a radio let alone navaids.
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Get there eventually
[This message has been edited by climbs like a dog (edited 03 September 1999).]
[This message has been edited by climbs like a dog (edited 03 September 1999).]
[This message has been edited by climbs like a dog (edited 03 September 1999).]