What an entertaining thread this has turned out to be!
I've been away from my nightly visit to PPRuNe for nine days, organising a gliding competition. We will not mention how many days of cross country gliding weather we enjoyed last week....
So have read the entire thread at one sitting. Peterh337 is a true gem, his discourse witty and knowlegable.
Basically the whole discussion turns on a remark attributed to a government funded body to the effect that undue reliance on GPS can lead to "poor situational awareness"
Well, there is situational awareness, and situational awareness. I invested a LOT of money a long time ago in a Garmin 55, and it was absolutely liberating.
No more wrestling with refolding charts in a cramped glider cockpit.
Crossing the Irish Sea in my Supercub, I simply velcroed the little darling on top of the instrument panel. Even used it sailing my boat in Tampa Bay.
( typed in EAST instead of WEST only the once, but if you have the basic notion in your brain that the sun should be setting in THAT direction, the suspicion soon arises that your trusty GPS is a bit confused....)
Situational awareness, or location, is one thing. Situational awareness or looking out the window carefully in VFR conditions, is something else entirely. The lucid discussion by David Dowd, US District Court Judge, says
it all, in the case mentioned by a previous poster, where a flying school tried to blame a midair on the temptation to fly staring at your handy moving map display. Said the judge, throwing out the case against the Garmin folks, "The evidence remains undisputed that all pilots flying under VFR conditions KNOW they have an unflinching duty to maintain vigilance in scanning for traffic by looking through the windscreen"
Getting fixated on instruments, gadgets, or a paper map does not absolve the VFR pilot of that unflinching duty.