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Old 6th November 2006 | 14:34
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Fuji Abound
 
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 4,631
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From: UK
The first problem with nav is everything looks very different from the air - contrary to what you expect! You think you know your local patch - but you don’t.

That changes fairly quickly. You will find you can identify the local landmarks and find your way around without any problems.

Unfortunately that helps you surprisingly little with the wider patch. It is not your navigational technique that has improved just your familiarity with the visual clues in your local area.

Whatever they tell you, in my experience accurate navigation using a map, eyeball and slide rule is an art. Bose-X is correct it takes a life time to perfect. For some it is an enjoyable art. There is an active group called the Precision Flyers and they organise some excellent events. Go join in once you have your PPL if you wish.

The alternative is to learn to navigate using radio navigation or a moving map GPS. The second is amazingly easy, the first requires more training, but at least is now part of the syllabus (to some degree anyway). Perhaps consider doing an IMC rating, I doubt there are many pilots with an IR or IMC who would consider navigating any distance without using a GPS or radio nav.
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