There is always the assumption that everybody without a GPS is practicing proper airmanship, whereas everybody with a GPS is a d***head who is relying on it totally and goes hysterical when the batteries run out.
"Baby" and "bathwater" comes to mind here.
I am going to get jumped on by the usual people for defending GPS but I am going to keep doing it, in the proper context.
There are good pilots who fly without a GPS and there are awful pilots who fly with a GPS. There are pilots who go for a flight without a physical fuel check (I used to during my entire high-wing PPL training; doing what I was told: check the tech log, it's good enough); lots of people don't check weather, or don't understand much about it, etc.
BUT, as I've written before, I don't actually think GPS is the real issue. After all, who cares how somebody else navigates? If somebody out there is flying with a sextant, it's 100% their business. Or dipping down to 499ft to read the motorway signs, as the bar proppers often claim to do. I think this subject is a constant hot potato because a mention of GPS very reliably triggers the traditionalist v. modernist (moderniser?) debate, which is a hot potato in UK GA.
Why modernisation should be such a hot potato, I am not sure. I have heard sentiments at a certain airfield which was going to put in an ILS, from "grass roots" pilots who feared the place will go commercial, prices will go up, and they will be priced out of it. Perhaps this is the real driver in all this.
The CAA doesn't help at all. Education, rather than muck spreading, would be a good idea. If they spent as much time into educating about GPS as they spend slagging it off and collating airspace bust data, we would be ahead.
Carrying a GPS (which you know how to use) on a pre-PPL solo x/c flight.... hmmm, not sure. Safety wise it is an excellent idea and I am sure many have done it. After all, if you mess up really badly, get totally lost and run out of fuel before you can find a runway, you are risking wrecking the plane in a forced landing. I think there is about a 10% chance of a forced landing going very badly but that figure covers experienced pilots as well. During my training, one student vanished on his x/c. Everybody in charge was tearing their hair out, and were doing so doubly five hours later when it was obvious his fuel must have run out. The poor instructor was sweating rather a lot. Eventually the pilot contacted the school; he got totally lost and flew randomly all over S England until he found a runway, and landed on it (somewhere in Kent). Even a good field landing is probably recoverable only with a trailer, which is a few grand. BUT.... if anybody finds out that you carried a GPS, you could be in serious trouble. I won't express a view on this either way. It's actually highly likely that a student will not be sent on a x/c unless the weather is perfect, guaranteed perfect, and there are really really obvious landmarks to follow, and the route is very simple and well away from controlled airspace. The instructor can't take the risk.
Last edited by IO540; 5th October 2006 at 12:21.