CAAP 5.81-1(1) has been amended to reflect CASA's recommendation to include of a navigation exercise as part of a flight review as a result of investigation of recent accidents and incidents by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB).
Is this an example of yet another well-intended, but largely ineffectual requirement?
I don't know the details but I suspect that the incidents that have prompted this amemdment occurred well away from the pilots home base - in an area with which they were not familiar. How many people actually get lost in their home patch?
So how do you fix this? Have pilots fly 1 hr away from home to another aerodrome, give them a diversion to somewhere else, and then return to home base? In a C172/PA28 they would never be more than 100 nm from home. Chances are they can look out the window and think, "Oh, there is Aunt Nancy's place over there"!
I recall when validating my NZ CPL on a test with a DCA examiner, out near Dalby, on top of scattered cloud, I was asked,
"Show me on the map where we are".
Me:
"There"!
Examiner:
"How do you know that"?
Me:
"Cause that's where we are"!
Examiner:
"If we were 5 nm left of track (which we weren't), what correction would you make to have us arrive over the top of your destination"?
Me:
"Ohhh, you want me to do that 1:60 thing. Why didn't you just say so"?
Examiner:
"Yes, you Kiwi pilots can't navigate for nuts"!
Never did tell the prick that I had 500+ hrs of flying around that area, and he never looked far enough back in my log book to see that I learnt to fly at Archerfield.
I am not knocking the need for some to do a navex, but I don't see the need to mandate. Should be worked out with the instructor doing the BFR, as to what is required.
What's next? Mandated flight into a control zone? That's gonna make for an expensive BFR for pilots living in somewhere like Longreach!
Dr 