Pilotage and Dead Reckoning

[Beethoven]

After reading some american nav articles I have come across the term "pilotage" with regards to visual nav.Is this different to Dead Reckoning or just another name for it...from what I can tell,it has more to do with flying from landmark to landmark visually than using the "known direction for known time" approach of Dead Reckoning.
Any info or advice appreciated.
Cheers

[Stan Evil]

I've been in aviation over 30 years and I only heard the definitive answer to this a year or so ago. It comes down to our nautical heritage from which we get pilotage and navigation. Pilotage is what pilots do - they guide ships in sight of landmarks that they know well - coming into harbour for example. Navigation is what navigators do - they guide ships by dead-reckoning when out of sight of land.

Applying this to aircraft: pilotage is a posh word for 'track-crawling' - going from one known feature to another, looking at the ground at the expense of lookout and flying accuracy; navigation is flying a plan with check features every 6 to 10 mins to allow you to refine the plan which was based on dead-reckoning, either mental or using a whizz-wheel.

I guess it's fairly obvious which method of nav I think is the best!! <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

[theRolfe2]

Pilotage is how you find your way home from the pub - by reference to *known* landmarks. You need to know the route to do it. There's nothing wrong with pilotage if you know the area like the back of your hand and don't need to spend much time keeping track of your position. It is not a substitute for Dead Reckoning when you are doing a cross country.

theRolfe

[ 15 January 2002: Message edited by: theRolfe2 ]</p>

[twistedenginestarter]

The two are entirely separate. Each is entirely valid in its own right. DR of course is how you used to fly IMC before radio aids. No doubt pilotage is how people flew for a long time before they started to worry about calculating wind direction.

For the PPL and CPL we use a combination. DR is "corrected" by pilotage.

It is important to realise they are separate as you have to adopt a navigational style that works effectively for you. We have seen on another thread what happens if the pilot becomes obsessed with map reading. Once he becomes 'lost' he feels his navigation has thus broken down. Of course his navigation is still valid until he either fails to arrive at his waypoint at his computed time (-ish) or some other visual cue now confirms an erroneous position.

[FlyingForFun]

Just a minor point, but...

I've seen the phrase spelt both Ded Reckoning, without the "a", and Dead Reckoning, with the "a". The latter is more common, but I've never found an explaination for where the phrase comes from. However, I have heard an explaination for the less-common Ded Reckoning spelling, which is why I believe that this one is correct.

The phrase Ded Reckoning is short for "Deduced reckoning", because you deduce your heading and timings from other information, such as desired track, airspeed and forecast or calculated wind. Thus, Ded Reckoning, in it's true form, does not require you to look out the window to navigate. (Of course, you have to look out the window to set your attitude and look for traffic if you're in VMC.)

So those replies which have said that what we're taught is a combination of Ded Reckoning and Pilotage are completely correct, since looking out the window and confirming your ded reckoning by identifying ground features is a form of pilotage, and is not ded reckoning.

FFF
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[Genghis the Engineer]

"Pilotage" is an excellent novel by Neville Shute written in the late 1920s.

G

[twistedenginestarter]

You probably would have to look out the window.

For DR you need to know the wind. A long long time ago there was no handy met so you had to calculate wind by observing your progress against fixed points on the ground. Of course you didn't have to know where they were...