Solo nav

[EGTC]

Theres a few things to do if you get lost. I you've tuned the nearest VOR/DMEs then you can get a position fix straight away, no messing around. Depending what frequency your on you could ask for a QDM, or even better if your recieving a LARS from someone then just ask where you are, they know.

[High Wing Drifter]

What is the difference between beeing uncertain of your position and being lost? Lets be clear about this, with attendant risk of this thread running to 30 pages, I would say: Being uncertain is when you know you are near your intended position, but you simply haven't confirmed this with the identification of features, it is virtually part and parcel of DR navigation! Being lost is accepting that you really have no confidence in your position and can probably only happen if you flew in the wrong direction than intended and you didn't time the leg (or found yourself in IMC, but that is another issue). In theory at least, if you timed the leg then, even if you flew anywhere between 30 and 60 deg out, you still know where abouts you are.

[EGTC]

I always thought "temporarily unsure of position" is just a better way of saying lost. If I'm unsure of my position I'd called that lost.

[Sul]

Hey

Just an update - my solo nav was delayed initially due to bad weather and me falling ill in between (stomach bug or something...) but I'm well now and yesterday went for my solo nav. The nav to the airfield went amazingly well - timing was perfect, headings were great, and I didn't find myself off course even once. All the time I was in the air I kept repeating Aviate Navigate Comm and it worked out really well. So I landed at the airfield, felt a great sense of achievement and was quite happy with myself!

Then on the outbound flight, I'm doing the power checks and I get a huge rpm drop and the engine starts to sputter and sound really rough! And I'm thinking "please no, not on my first land away!".. anyway, so I followed the instructions in my checklist, to no avail. Called my instructor up and he gave me more instructions - tried those, still to no avail. In the end, a friendly chap came over and suggested I should ask the maintainence guy that just happened to be parking another plane just opposite me. So they have a look at the plane, found a dead spark plug, and by the time it all got fixed, around 2 hours had passed since I landed and the airfield had become unlicensed. Anyway, a couple of instructors came over in another plane to pick me up and we flew out.

Just thought I'd share this with you guys. My first land away was a bit more eventful than I thought, but I loved the trip flying over to the airfield on my own and I just can't wait to do it again.

[White Bear]

I’m a little surprised no one has suggested that all marked land marks be within a few miles of each other, so as you over fly one, the next one is already in sight. (Or perhaps this is a given in the U.K.?)

During my first X country, the winds aloft were much higher, and from a different direction than forecast. I discovered that in order to follow my track, I had to steer over 20 deg off my planned course in order to follow the landmarks I had marked on the map. It was a huge confidence builder and I learned some important lessons. Never rely on forecasts. Keep your head out of the cockpit in VFR. Know how much fuel you have, and how long will that fuel keep you aloft. I’ve had many a X country fight take almost double the estimated time because of unexpected, that is not forecasted, strong headwinds.

I0 540 is right about getting a ‘GPS’ but IMHO with one caveat, do so after learning how to navigate from and with maps. In this the old ways are good to know, but if you really want to know where you are, and how long it’s actually going to take you to get to where you are going, get a decent GPS, and keep spare batteries on hand, even if it’s powered by the aircraft.
Regards,
W.B.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

I’m a little surprised no one has suggested that all marked land marks be within a few miles of each other, so as you over fly one, the next one is already in sight.

Nah, too easy, too boring.

Seriously though, you can't always do that. Over East Anglia, on a clear day from FL95 in a C172 you can see pretty well the whole coast, so any navigation consists simply of spotting your destination and pointing at it.

But on a bad day, scraping along at 1500' beneath the cloud with visibility on your minimum, you might be able to see nothing for minutes at a time but lots of wiggly little roads, all alike, lots of tiny little villages, all alike, lots of wiggly little streams, none of them on the map. So even if you wanted to you couldn't pick landmarks within sight of each other as there simply aren't any.

[Johnm]

When I was doing this not very long ago, I found that there were a few things that gave me some basic confidence.

The first was really detailed planning and putting the details on the chart as I was taught, no short cuts. The fan lines in particular were a big help in looking for features and I used features way points. Note that you won't see features if you fly over them, so the fan lines help you to spot useful landmarks either side of your track.

The second was FREDA checks especially DI and Compass alignment and then you can recheck your drift about every 10 mins or so at features.

The third was asking other pilots how to spot the other airfield when I got there!

Good luck! I was so chuffed after my first solo landaway it was ridiculous!

[High Wing Drifter]

I’m a little surprised no one has suggested that all marked land marks be within a few miles of each other, so as you over fly one, the next one is already in sight. (Or perhaps this is a given in the U.K.?)

If I understand you correctly, I disagree with that as a suitable technique. To me, the fundemental aspect of not getting lost is knowing not only where you were, but what time you were there. If you require 90+% of your attention simply to feature hop, then something else will be left out sooner or later. A good 10-15 mins between features allows plenty of time to look at the sky, FREDA, prep the next call, update the map/PLOG, etc, etc. But not necessarily at the expense of a fix on a really really easy to spot feature.

Sul,

Congrats fellah! I reckon you had a very valuable flight and you seemed to handle it all very professionally. Nice one

[Gertrude the Wombat]

The third was asking other pilots how to spot the other airfield when I got there!

I find the aerial photos in multimap quite helpful.

[FlyingForFun]

Congrats on finding the airfield easily! The whole point of the solo nav during the PPL course is to give you the confidence in the techniques you are being taught. It is sometimes hard to believe that they work, which is why people sometimes resort to using a GPS or feature-crawling after getting their license - but if you follow the advice on this thread, all of your nav, dual or solo, will work absolutely fine without any fancy gadgets.

One other thing to add to the good advice already given, for your next nav trip - when you're looking for a turning point, make sure you study your chart and identify features which will uniquely identify it.

For example, there's a town near to my home airfield which I take most of my students to. Most of them identify it by saying it lies next to a motorway and a railway line. That's true, it does - but so do the next three towns. When I ask my students how they can be sure it's not some other town, they usually run out of ideas.... until I point out the relationship of the motorway and the railway. Alongside the town, they are right next to each other, but just a mile or so north of the town, they split apart in a "Y" shape - a feature which is unique to this particular town. That's the kind of feature which gives you the confidence in your navigation.

FFF
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[White Bear]

HWD,
quote:
________________________________________
If you require 90+% of your attention simply to feature hop,
________________________________________

This is rather overstating the case don’t you think?
If you have the next landmark in sight, I’d think you’d more likely to relax, and look around, rather than search the ground in an effort to penetrate the gloom.
W.B.

[High Wing Drifter]

WB,

This is rather overstating the case don’t you think?

Hmm, perhaps If I took that method literally, I do think it would take alot of your attention compared with the map down until 3mins to go method. I do suspect, that without the timing the leg, you will also work harder at positively identing features. Especially in more challenging conditions.

[Pierre Argh]

"Now I should have a large town to my 2 o'clock, a woodland area and high ground to my right and a lake about 9 o'clock.

The big problem comes... which I think is the point others have made... when you can see a large town in your 2 o'clock with a wooded area and high ground... but the lake seems to have disappeared... You'd be amazed how easy it is to be fooled into accepting that you're still on track (been there, done that!)

One tip I was given was, for what it's worth, when planning look for funnel features i.e. a river coming in from your right hand side and a railway to your left, crossing over a bridge ahead. You should be able to pick up the line features sometime before you approach the bridge and so reassure yourself that you are on track?

[slim_slag]

Well done sul. Those checklists are worth their weight in gold, eh? Remember that, don't get complacent, and do some googling on "scud running"