squall
WOW
Wish there had been a PPRuNe when I were a lad.
There is more concentrated pearls of wisdom on the one page here, than I have seen in a lifetime.
Be careful to get your head right and decide on whatever method with which you are most comfortable and have experience and stick to it.
Don't fall for the, "well that doesn't seem to be working I'd better try something else" syndrome.
Relax,...................
you're not going fast enough (unless you're AOTW perhaps
) to get far enough out of wack that it can't be salvaged simply and easily.
Unless you do something really stupid or there is a serious crosswind, just how far off track and time can you get at 140KTS in ten minutes or so, even 30 minutes.
As an exercise do the math on where you would end up using average winds calculated on flying TRK for HDG and TAS for GS, as if you hadn't made any corrections for winds and then draw a circle around the destination or checkpoint of a radius equivalent to the worst case.
You will see that you you wont be all that far away and if a little altitude is available you should be able to see it.
The radius of the circle shouldn't change all that much, regardless of your TAS as the effect of wind is proportionate.
This should only be used as a confidence boosting exercise to show you that the worst case, subject to serial stupidity, is not all that bad.
Macro nav, look at the big picture out there, coz thats what's on the map then home in from there.
Look at the fence rather than trying to count the pickets, then go go on from there.
Had occasion to "find" an "uncertain of my position" chap between Leonora and The Rock, who was scuttling around in circles at dot feet trying to get a handle on it by looking for the "hills and lakes"
as landmarks on the chart.
It only took as long as it took to him to climb to altitude and tell me about the huge salt lakes in every direction that looked just like those on the chart, to put him within a couple of miles. Sounds simple, but it really is.
I will admit to confusing myself on the odd occasion and not being able to positively identify enroute features and resorted at the end to just flying my plan and hey presto the pinpoint or destination had a habit of turning up more or less where it should. It would be easy to get lured away from that plan, which if properly and carefully prepared will invariably get you there.
I reckon 90% of the success of the flight, is the time spent in preparation, the execution is the easy and fun part.
Good luck and as they all say have fun.