Thanks for the replies.
As other have said, with my limited experience flying the plane requires 100% of my meagre brain-power, so I have little left for navigation. But I'm not really trying to navigate, as such; merely to recognize things in my local area. I have been surprised how difficult that is for me. Yesterday I flew over what ought to have been a highly distinctive landmark -- a 300-ft tall windmill. I can recognize it from miles away on the ground, but in the air I didn't spot it until it was pointed out to me. I found this rather disconcerting.
I appreciate that I don't `need' to be able to navigate yet, but I'm working on a very tight budget, and if there is anything I can practice on the ground that stands a chance of improving my skills in the air, I'm willing to give it a try.
I fly out of Elstree, and there are two (maybe more) VRPs marked on the chart within a few minutes flight. I really can't imagine that I would have recognized either of them from the air had they not been pointed out to me. Without being shown, I would have had absolutely no idea what a golf couse looks like from the air. I'm not sure how I would cope with recognizing VRPs I've never seen before.
I've tried Google Earth but, for far as I can tell, it can only view from directly above (unless other people know different). What I see out of the cockpit doesn't look the same. Maybe I can make the adjustment with practice, or maybe you have to have some built-in image processing skill that I lack.
As for GPS: I appreciate that this may be the wrong place for a moan but, when I started flying, it appalled me that GPS wasn't a standard part of training and of navigation examinations. I would have thought by now that a GPS unit would have been as essential a piece of cockpit equipment as a magnetic compass, and use of GPS an essential skill. It's not even particularly expensive. Of course a GPS unit can fail, but so can any other piece of equipment. Moan over
