Where the &*%£ am I??

[wsmempson]

Well, a very interesting first today; I hadn’t flown for 3 weeks and I went for a jolly in the local area this afternoon from EGTB, my home field – the vis was good, cloud base 2,500 ft, but the wind was 030 17kts gusting 30kts across runway 06. It was bumpy in the climb and choppy all the way up to Milton Keynes and across to Silverstone. By the time I headed home, I was beginning to feel queasy, but at least it was quicker coming back than going as Aylesbury came up rather faster than I expected it to. Imagine my surprise then, not to be able to find either Princes Risborough or The Chiltern Ridge.

After a couple of orbits, from which I could still see Milton Keynes (looking not as I remember it at all, but I could definitely see the snowdome) I dialled up 121.5 and confessed to being unsure of my position. The guys there were great, gave me a squawk and, lo and behold, the town below me was Leighton Buzzard, not Aylesbury – a classic case of trying to make information fit my mental picture, rather than vice versa.

In addition, the DI had wandered a good 45 degrees, but the compass had been swirling about so rapidly (and I had been lazy about my Freda checks) I hadn’t noticed the error. Hence a course of 170 degrees was actually 125 degrees. Doh!!

London gave me a vector for Booker and quickly Halton came up and I was pretty much home free.

But a real lesson was learnt about complacency and how a whole bunch of little errors can add up to being lost in what is figuratively my bloody back garden. A lesson learnt (I hope).

[bletchleytugie]

Well done for recognising that you had you a problem and addressing it at an early stage

Leighton Buzzard is not a million miles from Luton and it would have only taken a couple of minutes in the wrong direction for you to become another "bust" statisitic.

[BEagle]

Wycombe Air Park

[Footless Halls]

VERY valuable post. I speak from experience as I had almost exactly the same experience, including 121.5, from Elstree.

[Fuji Abound]

Good move however I also just wondered given you had positively identified the Snow Dome which was less than 10 miles away whether you considered routing to MK and sorting yourself out from there.

I know it is easy with hindsight :)

[Andy_RR]

Fair question Fuji,

I did my first nav exercise with an instructor yesterday. TBH, I felt that it would be easy to begin to panic and not think perfectly straight when in such a fix when solo, especially with low hours or limited XC experience.

I'm sure that more experience will help though

[Human Factor]

Well done ws. You did exactly the right thing. :ok:

WAP can be an awkward one to find, in as much as the Chilterns can give you the option of seeing what you want to see if you're too far east, as you found out. Don't forget, Princes Risborough has the railway lines running through it. Also, head west and you could pick up the M40. That will lead you to south towards Stokenchurch mast (and the threshold if you're desperate!!!) but be aware of the gliding site at Haddenham, the jumpers at Lewknor and of course Benson MATZ.

[wsmempson]

No, no GPS - but to be fair, this is an area I know well enough to take people up and give a tourist spiel. I even found it pretty recognisable when I did my night rating.

What I find so interesting is that even though I had 433 dialed in on the ADF, shown well to the SW and the Bovingdon VOR showing to the SE, none of this fitted my slightly beffuddled mental picture and I was unable to interpret the information correctly.

I really rather like radio navigation and have been perfectly able (in stiller conditions) to get a rough location fix from two radials. What was facinating yesterday was how difficult, under tiresome conditions, I found it to perform some of the simpler tasks.

The nearest comparison that I can draw is trying to read the instructions to a stereo while on a fairground ride. The words are English, it's just not possible to understand their meaning!

What was at the forefront of my mind, the moment that I admitted to myself that the picture was all wrong, was that i needed to make the call to 121.5 before I pitched in the London or Luton CTR.

Whilst Andy Warhol predicted that everybody would be famous for 15 minutes, this seemed like the wrong reason for my 15 minutes...

[SkyHawk-N]

this seemed like the wrong reason for my 15 minutes...

I'm sure this happens to a great majority of pilots some time or other, you had the sense to take a correct action instead of blundering on with your fingers crossed. Your posting will, I'm sure, make many others think and some may learn something. All healthy stuff.

It's also a great opportunity to start another debate about GPS! :E

[eyeinthesky]

QUOTE
It's also a great opportunity to start another debate about GPS!
UNQUOTE

Yeah... Let's imagine a scenario where he has wandered off his planned track whilst looking about, then just punched GOTO EGTB..:uhoh:

I'm sure Luton Approach and the punters on Easyjet thrown around the sky during the avoiding action would have thought that was better than calling D&D and getting some help!

wsmempson: Congratulations! You did exactly the right thing and showed good airmanship in getting yourself out of an awkward situation. Don't take any flak from subsequent posters who will suggest you should have paid more attention to your navigation or used a GPS on your vfr pootle.. These things happen, and you resolved it well. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[Superpilot]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who felt a bit sick yesterday, actually I was sick :yuk: My queasyness set in at about 15 minutes into the flight. When that happens your procedures (checklist items and nav) just deterioate due to the concentration levels required just to keep the plane upright!

[SkyHawk-N]

then just punched GOTO EGTB

Agreed, this would be a stupid thing to do :confused:

Don't take any flak from subsequent posters who will suggest you should have paid more attention to your navigation or used a GPS on your vfr pootle

Please point out the 'flak' and the suggestions about paying more attention to the nav? I can't find any :hmm:

I think that everyone here agrees that wsmempson did a correct, responsible and sensible thing contacting 121.5. I have been in a similar situation and appreciate the pressures which occur in such a situation.

[wsmempson]

Thanks for the kind and useful response, everyone. (Suffice to say that I dare not tell my wife this tale....).

I plan to start my IMC later this year, so it has probably been a timely and salutary lesson about how easy it is to become distracted and disorientated.

However, in the short term I think I'll certainly be a bit more choosey about the conditions that I fly in. Quite apart from the experience out of "the twilight zone", being rattled about like an ice-cube in a cocktail shaker isn't actually much fun.

[Lister Noble]

A few weeks ago,I think I posted about it at the time, but I was travelling with a tailwind and a ground speed of 135 knots,vis was not brilliant and I was not totally sure of my exact position re destination airfield so called for and received help to locate airfield.
What I really wanted to do was have some time to think and check ground to chart etc but felt it was all happening too quickly.
I have since thought what I wanted was to do was lower some or all flap, to reduce speed and improve visibilty from cockpit.
So I would be flying at landing approach speed say 80 knots plus tailwind of 20 giving me a 100 knots downwind and 60 upwind ,and maybe fly a couple of orbits to re-orientate myself.
Would this be an acceptable thing to do?
Lister:)

[FlyingForFun]

Lister.... yes!

FFF
-------------

[Penguina]

I felt that it would be easy to begin to panic and not think perfectly straight when in such a fix when solo, especially with low hours or limited XC experience.

You were right. It's dead easy! I don't know one pilot who hasn't had that experience.

Nausea is a nasty, insideous trap too. I've had one experience with it - I felt so dreadful that by the time I was nearly home it didn't occur to me that perhaps I might like to consider the 25G30 headwind along the runway when deciding when and how to set up my straight-in approach. Just as well my engine didn't quit, huh?

[Saab Dastard]

I know EXACTLY how you felt wsmempson, been there - fortunately still have the t-shirt!

It's that horrible feeling of your brains just dribbling down your back, leaving a cold, clammy, empty feeling in your head!

I remember one such occasion near Potter's Bar en-route Duxford when I suddenly had a "Where t f am I" moment - all I could see was very similar-looking motorways in every conceivable direction! By the time I had done an orbit to try to check position I was totally disorientated and had completely lost the plot, despite having GPS (with which I was not familiar), and 2 x VORs tuned in.

I called up Luton Radar (as I was listening on their frequency anyway - and the ability to do something as complicated as change frequencies was way beyond me) and told them that I was "Uncertain of Position". My mind was so gummed up that when they asked me for an approximate position the words that came out were "North of London".

Turned out I was still smack on track, just SE of Panshanger, NE of BPK.

No further problems after that, but I learnt a lesson about just how quickly you can become overwhelmed with even a trivial workload if something goes amiss in the air.

I don't even want to think about instrument flying!

SD

[Tim_CPL]

No, no GPS - but to be fair, this is an area I know well enough to take people up and give a tourist spiel. ....

Apparently not if you had to dial 121.5!

[Piltdown Man]

wsmempson: What an honest and open person you are! Speaking for myself, well done! There are too few people, who realising that they have a problem, do something positive to sort it out. The 121.5 system is designed to be used in exactly the way you used it and for the reasons you used it. And please ignore the GPS protagonists! Pressing the "Direct to" button from an unknown point is bloody stupid thing to do.

[IO540]

"Let's imagine a scenario where he has wandered off his planned track whilst looking about, then just punched GOTO EGTB"

The proposition that anyone using a method which you don't approve of is of necessity an idiot (only an idiot, or someone who has never had any flight training and thus has never seen an aviation chart, would do a GOTO on a GPS if they are lost) does not make a particularly valuable contribution to knowledge.

:rolleyes:

[eyeinthesky]

Perhaps I did not express myself correctly. The main point of my post was to add to everyone else's congratulation of wsmempson's method of extricating himself from the tricky situation in which he found himself using sensible methods.

The GPS comment was intended (and obviously failed:confused:) to point out that GPS would, based upon what the narrative so far had told to us, have had little impact upon resolving the situation. In fact, it might have made it worse if the pilot had decided, once unsure of position, to press GOTO EGTB as a method of resolution. The point I was alluding to was that GPS is not a panacea which will help in every situation, and that what this guy did this time was actually better.

There are any number of infringements of controlled airspace every year in which GPS probably plays a part, due to over-reliance on its accuracy or on the lack of any pre-flight planning made easy by the use of the GOTO button. Just like any other instrument (including the window and a chart), if you don't use it properly, it will get you into trouble just as quickly. That was the point I was trying to make.

By the way, I made no "proposition that anyone using a method which you don't approve of is of necessity an idiot". That was your own perception. What is wrong with not approving of taking the action I described in the situation given? It is bad airmanship and potentially dangerous!

As for the 'flak' comment, that was intended to pre-empt upcoming snide remarks on how it was he found himself in that position in the first place. Sure enough, they came:

QUOTE
Quote:
Originally Posted by wsmempson
No, no GPS - but to be fair, this is an area I know well enough to take people up and give a tourist spiel. ....


Apparently not if you had to dial 121.5!
UNQUOTE

Apologies to anyone who feels offended by my remarks.

[SkyHawk-N]

The GPS comment was intended (and obviously failed:confused:) to point out that GPS would, based upon what the narrative so far had told to us, have had little impact upon resolving the situation. In fact, it might have made it worse if the pilot had decided, once unsure of position, to press GOTO EGTB as a method of resolution. The point I was alluding to was that GPS is not a panacea which will help in every situation, and that what this guy did this time was actually better.

In a similar situation, if the pilot had been flying in my aircraft he could have switched on the GPS (if it was not already switched on) and looked at a map showing where his position actually was, allowing him to regain some or even full situational awareness. (BTW: I have flown in this area quite a number of times and have not suffered with a GPS problem). No need to press the GOTO button and I would suggest this would have helped in the resolution of the problem.