Sit down with the map and "walk the route", imagining what features you will see. An example, a route may be pretty featureless, but, for example, is there a big mast at the end of the leg you can fly to? Big to small, difficult if you are in east anglia or by cranners as its so darned flat! Pick turning points that a mole couldnt miss; reservoirs, masts (on hills), chimneys stand out like the dogs.
Get your pre-hats and post-hats nailed. You can increase your capacity by calculating the drifts prior to getting airbourne and chinagraphing them in your route. once your post hats are done, focus on a good lookout and fly the aircraft accurately one time, Also, compare safety alts to airways above you, nothing more embarrassing than LL abort straight into a control zone! It may seem a bit extreme, but on a damp day with little flying, go and sit in an aircraft and go through the actions you will take at each event, setting the heading, imagining flying the speed, it will work wonders.
other than this, make sure the instructors know you are putting the work in. I used to do a lot of route study when at linton, as I was p*ss poor at low level nav. It got me through. My instructor on one sortie took my map and asked without reference to the map to talk through the route. He wasnt expectign post box detail; what he wanted to know was that if I clocked the wind turbines just north of newcastle airport I needed to turn as I was about to bust their airspace!
Most important point though, if you are flying on heading, on airspeed and have done your route prep correctly, NEVER talk yourself into a ground fix 30 degrees off track unless you are certain; if you get to your turn point on time and you have been flying accurately, and you havent seen your fix, its probably underneath you!
Finally, we all make mistakes, dont beat yourself up about it. If we were all so awesome at nav, we wouldnt have invented GPS. Its a capacity exercise just as much as a navex; capacity, despite what others have you believe is not about being a sky god, its more about doing the RIGHT SORT of preparation before a sortie.
Oh, and when you get to Linton, make sure the compass is set to magnetic and not Gyro!
Last edited by VinRouge; 26th Mar 2011 at 10:21.