Hmmmm.... I will bet you a pound to a pinch of Pig muck that all those that have put forward an explanation for the 1 in 60 rule completely forget about it when they are navigating their aeroplanes across good old blighty. Unless you have a dedicated navigator sitting beside you that you can trust to do all the sums associated with this, I would do what I suspect 99% of pilots on here that use a chart do, and that is follow the china graph line that you drew on the half million when you planned the flight. We don’t live in the desert; we live in a land with lots of recognisable towns, motorways, railways and many other landmarks. Granted, we also have the occasional bit of bad visibility too, but if you can’t see the ground properly you should still be sitting on it!
In my view, you draw the track line on the map and then you draw on the wind vector. You do your calculation on what heading to fly and check this out regularly from the moment you take off with landmarks as you go along the track. If you are a bit to the right of the line, then steer a bit more to the left and check things again in a few minutes making more alterations if it is necessary.
Navigating like this with “Mk1 Eyeball” ensures that you get an accurate appreciation of where you are AND affords the important requirement of LOOKING OUT OF THE WINDOW!
I bet another pinch of Pig muck that the same guys I referred to at the beginning of my statement have a nice little GPS perched somewhere on the panel and Why not indeed? Because a GPS backed up with a current aviation chart provide a great navigation setup that is accurate, easy to use and takes most of the worry out of the operation allowing one to enjoy the flying.
1 in 60 rule…… straight into the waste paper basket would be my advice
