I've been following this for a while and I've been left a little confused.
Recently I flew a cross-country in a motorglider under test conditions, it was only the second time a had used a half-mil in an aircraft and had absolutely no problem flying by dead reckoning. I passed the test though I'll be doing a refresher ahead of next summer to keep my field selection up to scratch.
How can a 1400 hour pilot have problems navigating with a quarter-mil or a half-mil, let alone a GPS? I know it's Africa and an open-cockpit machine is a little less comfortable than a motorglider yet with that sort of experience I'd have thought that dead reckoning would come fairly naturally. A GPS with a "direct to" function would surely make it a doddle.
I could understand if we were talking about an RAF fast jet low level environment because there are people who wouldn't have the natural aptitude for it, however this should be bread and butter stuff.