Well, regardless of what Gertrude has or doesn't have to do, I think the whole Radio Nav thing (which is different to RNAV, as GroundBound says) is a very interesting topic.
Personally, I disagree with Englishal when he says: "I think someone would have to be pretty stupid to take to the air, then rely on someone else to get them out of trouble, when they have all the nescessary kit with them" - but with certain provisos.
We need to distinguish between being a bit unsure of where you are, and being completely lost. Personally, I've been a bit unsure of where I am many times. On several occassions when I hadn't planned on using any nav-aids, I decided to use them to confirm my position. Usually it confirmed I was roughly where I thought I was, maybe a little way off track but not much. This, I think, is why Radio Nav is taught for PPL, and it seems entirely valid to me.
But Englishal talks about getting "out of trouble" - the implication being that you are completely and totally lost. I've never been in this situation, but I can imagine it must be pretty stressful. I'm a firm believer that in times of high stress such as this, you should use whatever method is least taxing on you. And if that happens to be talking to someone and squawking so they can locate you, then that's the thing to do.
I suspect that this is what Englishal actually means, and that it's the semantics I disagree with rather than the actual meaning. But I don't think people should be discouraged from calling a controller for help when they really are in trouble, just because they did an hour or two of tracking a VOR radial for their PPL.
FFF
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