I wonder how many of you that promote DR have entered a precision flying competition?
Scrub the spot landing (for the purpose of this discussion), but how accurately can you navigate the course.
The reason it is a competition is that it is an "art". Some are no where near good enough (or indeed as good as they thought they were), and some are amazingly accurate.
There are no precision flying competitions using GPS.
It wouldn’t make for much of a competition because they are accurate 99.9% of the time.
So if you want to route around, but close to zones, negotiate VRF routes, or perhaps make journeys half way across Europe and still leave yourself with plenty of capacity to attend to other tasks and enjoy the flying you had better get yourself a GPS with a moving map and make sure you know how to use it. If you do (with the emphasis on knowing how to use it) I can guarantee you will never infringe a zone or get lost.
If you enjoy map reading and dead reckoning promote it because it is a skill that should be enjoyed and appreciated, but do not make out it is as consistently reliable and accurate as GPS in a wide range of pilot hand's of different skill levels.
Not much is asked of pilot’s in terms of their interaction with what’s around them - in fact it boils down to don’t make a nuisance of yourself by flying too low and don’t zone infringe. That is why I feel if you doubt your DR skills it is irresponsible not to have a GPS in the cockpit with you (by all means just leave it switched on, and don’t look at it) but at least when you are not quite sure if that spread of houses is Reading or some other place you can use the GPS to over come your doubts and save yourself from upsetting those nice fellas at Heathrow.