Firstly don’t be ashamed of becoming uncertain of position. At one point I’m sure everyone has experienced it, I became very dis-orientated during a solo navigation flight once and the experience is horrible. I struggled initially with VFR navigation so feel I can offer a bit of advice speaking from my experience and some tips I have picked up. The good thing is admitting to yourself that it has happened and how to put measures in place to prevent it from re-occurring. Genghis offers some sound advice. Nav-aids can be extremely useful, especially in fairly featureless areas where a DME reading can save all sorts of hassle.
Once you’ve finished planning your route and worked out headings, take a minute to think to yourself “does this makes sense?” do the headings look right when compared to the track given the wind? Do the distances look about right, how does the heading look, what is the general orientation of the route? Has variation been applied correctly? Then talk yourself through your route, what do you expect to see and when, pick big key landmarks and then work in towards the smaller features. This will greatly enhance your situational awareness during flight and will enable you to quickly establish if you’re off track or not rather than attempting to map read whilst flying.
Your primary task is to fly the aircraft, everything else, checks etc... comes second. Fly your heading religiously, if you deviate from your planned altitude return to it immediately, this will instil good habits for more advanced training.
Whilst airborne trust your planning implicitly. Complete an ‘idiot check’ once you’re established on track. This encompasses questions such as:
Does the terrain shape the way it’s meant to on the map?
Do the large features on the map correspond with what appears on the ground?
You’ll find a way to do this that works well with you, I tend to check the timer, then look at my map to see where I should be then look outside to establish if I’m on track or not. Remember that this is not all one process; it’s to be combined with flying the aircraft and looking out.
Proper and through planning on the ground will pay dividends when airborne. You say that you had planned to go through some controlled airspace? Whilst planning your route on the ground you should have come up with a contingency plan if, for whatever reason, you couldn’t get a clearance through the airspace. This would involve legs drawn on the map and features identified to help you re-establish track after your diversion. I found 10NM marks on my checklist to be exceedingly helpful with planning last minute diversions.
Diversions by nature are last minute and the workload can become difficult to manage. Remember that all you need to get going is a heading. Once you’ve established on that heading start the timer, then think about distances, ETAs, MSAs etc... If you’re flying analogue gauges do a routine check of your compass and DI alignment. Don’t be afraid to scribble all over your map, I find a thin pen works best as this won’t obscure important information, write on when you plan to do events before you take-off.
Last edited by average-punter; 15th Mar 2015 at 01:34.