Looking out of the window while VFR?
 

I’m coming back to flying and, wow, things have changed!

I originally started off by buying an Auster and then looking for an instructor to teach me to fly it. That was fun with Dave Coulson at Skeggy! Did the whole thing in minimum time over a winter. It was quite an experience to wake up in the Skeggy caravans and find the water in the toilets frozen over! :eek:

Aye, we were tough in those days… :ok:

Flew the Auster up and down France a few times with nothing but an upside down compass, a map and a watch. Did a lot of flying until about 1999 then stopped. Got my medical back in 2003 (I wear hearing aids now, so there was some trepidation!) but didn’t really fell the bug. Now, it’s alive in me again and I’m raring to go.

Except…

Now, everyone’s got GPS and can’t/won’t fly without it! I have a friend who took me for a flight at the end of last year – three GPS – for little more than little local flights around the patch! :oh:

So, does nobody look out of the window these days?

Using GPS usually leads to less time looking down on the map, i.e more time looking out the window.

I'll take your word for it... not what I saw though. All I saw was a blind following of the line on the map!

Looked like more time "in" the cockpit to me ;)

VOD80:There's still some diehards left - where I fly we're a solely map and compass operation. I'm all for having GPS but in my view it's vital to teach students the basics thoroughly and GPS training should be left to post-licence. Having said that I do think it's a moot point whether GPS or map+compass leads to more or less lookout - and whether that lookout is focused on ground features or incorporates looking for other traffic. In my experience most people are pretty crap at both unless they've been taught by military (or ex-military) instructors who physically and verbally abuse them every time they fail to look out. But no, I don't advocate that style of instructing!
NS

NorthSouth:
It's a shame! Dave Coulson (I don't know if he's still around) was a little bit like that.

And agree with you about GPS being a post licence thing as well.

'Dry' Dave is still around. Coulson FLying Services at Cranfield.

You are so last century IO540 :)

Integrate GPS training now
 

I strongly disagree. I think the very fact that GPS use and integration in cockpit procedures is not part of the training is causing the problems mentioned, not solving them.

Have you ever navigated in unfamiliar airspace over areas that don't have a lot of significant terrain features? And then to top it of the controller asks you to report VRP Sierra or to stay out of his CTR! The total amount of attention you have is limited and as soon as your navigation eats up a major part of the attention available to you, you will have a potentially dangerous situation developing.

Don't misunderstand me: GPS use has to be taught (sic?) in addition to the more traditional navigation techniques but we have to stop pretending GPS does not exist and will not be (ab)used.

With GPS I do look more outside, since I feel more confident of my position. I still fly map and compass, but on longer flights in unfamiliar airspace I put on GPS to check I didn't mistake that one road for another.
The thing is, GPS is not taught for PPL and therefore many people don't use it as should be. 2 or 3 flying lessons at the end of the course would be good, with emphasis on the use of it as standby instrument. But it can help you in those cases where it is too busy to enjoy the flying itself.
GPS is what navigation should go to, imagine people in the 30's saying no to VOR navigation for the same lookout reason.

Looking out of the window while VFR?
 

Vastly over-rated IMHO :E since one field looks very similar to another after a while.

Anyway there is no red line on the ground to mark the edge of controlled airspace.

I only ever rouse from my slumbers (like IO540) inside the FAF or if I get an audible traffic proximity alert - one eye slightly cracked open is usually enough to have a quick scan around.
Otherwise I set max power cruise, set the alarm clock to go off 1 min before landing, kick my shoes off, lie back, let George do the flying and have nice nap.

ZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZ

SB

I'm halfway through my hourbuilding and coming up to my CPL.

I've never used GPS while flying, and even if i flew with one would only ever use it as a back up to confirm my main means of navigation. Visual.

Do you? I don't bother. I just fly an autopilot coupled approach, then at about 20 feet chop the throttle and George keeps pitching up and eventually I stall - on the runway. Perfect autoland, why would you want to do it manually ?????

;)

You guys crack me up!
 

Thanks for the laugh! ;)

I'm looking forward to mixing with you 21st Century types!

You'll know me by my map and watch (the compass stays in the plane!) - and my qustion as to which airfield this is, actually :p

Cheers!

If you know Dave, tell him that the fool who learned to fly on an Auster at Skegness remembers him and says "hi"!

Cheers :ok:

Hello!

As long as you don't look at your map, watch and compass while I cross your way... Really, refusing to use an easily available modern navigation system that frees your attention for more important things than mapreading (like looking outside for traffic!) borders on gross negligence, if you ask for my opinion. The sky is a much busier place now than it used to be 20 years ago.

Happy landings,
Max

Agreed, just as long as you're not stuck in front of your GPS!
 

Hello Max,

This is all in French but it is quite simple!

Bienvenue sur le site du Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses - the sixth document down

Basically, they don't think that GPS comes for free :E An analysis of some accidents where the BEA (the French acident investigators) consider that GPS has been a great distraction in the cockpit (for one thing) and that pilot's have capitulated in front of it in other cases, blindly following it when they perhaps would have done something else had they still been doing it manually.

I know, probably statistically tenuous (not many accidents) and also because there is no evidence to support the other side of the argument (how many people have been saved by GPS, how many people have crashed because they had no GPS) but interesting reading anyway!

So, I'm happy and comfortable with my maps (batteries have never failed yet!)

Cheers and happy landing to you!

In my experience in various vehicles, those who can navigate utilize a GPS to spend less time navigating and more time flying and looking. Pull the GPS and they still know where they are, no problem. In fact, they'll have the map in front of them with a thumb near a visible landmark.

Those who cannot navigate spend most of their time following the magenta line head down. Pull the GPS and you are lucky if they have the plate with them which can tell them the frequency to get on to get a QDM.

(The latter category are the ones who will drive their car through three fences and over the edge where the bridge used to be when the navigator database was last updated in 2002.)

In other words, we need to make sure people are confident in their own navigation skills before letting them loose with a GPS.

Yes, I just presented the problem in a way which made it sound like I was giving the solution. Perhaps I have a future in politrickery? :)

One man and his Auster...with GPS of course!
 

So VOD when are you going to buy another Auster to go with your 21st century GPS?

Shouldn't think so. Your post made good sense to me. How many politicians do you know who can speak common sense?

Hello Ossie!
 

Long time no hear!

I still regret the 'RB story from time to time!

We'll see, I'm more into "efficiency" nowadays, but whatever it is, no GPS :E The Auster was great but it didn't do very much with all of the avgas that it consumed.

How many Austers do you have these days?

Hello!

VOD80: Thank you for pointing me to that article, interesting reading indeed. But the accidents described are mainly "continuing VFR flight into IMC with subsequent loss of control or CFIT". This kind of accident was "invented" long before GPS.

For many years I've been a subscriber of the British GA magazine "Pilot" (there is nothing comparable in Germany!) and there is not a single issue without at least three reports of zone infringements by GA aircraft who got lost. Many of them force airliners to go around and some even trigger collision alerts. Totally unnecessary risks and expenses - for the extra 15 minutes flying time of an airliner you can buy the best handheld GPS on the market and have it gilded or even platinum plated...

What I don't like about this kind of discussion (the one here is not the first of its kind and I have also had it with some of my instructor colleagues (*)) is the idea, that there exist "good" and "bad" instruments and/or navigation aids. Compass and airspeed indicator seem to be considered "good" ones and radio navigation aids in general and especially GPS are the bad ones.

In reality, the contrary is the case: The compass gives you magnetic heading information (that is totally irrelevant for navigation!) with a precision of no more than five degrees and the ASI gives you nothing but a rough estimate of airspeed - again irrelevant for navigational purposes. The cheapest and easiest GPS (like the one contained in my mobile phone...) show you what you really need: Ground track and groundspeed, both with at least two decimal places of precision. And if you get the second cheapest GPS, it will even show you the boundaries of restricted airspace and warn you about them. Why should one make life more difficult than it already is by refusing this kind of help?

Don't get me wrong - I'm not contrary to steam driven navigation at all. As a matter of fact I learned to fly long before GPS became available to the masses and I collect navigation tools of all kinds and like to use them every now and then. But I refuse to send students on solo cross country flights without a functioning GPS unit on board.

Greetings, Max

(*) As you can easily imagine, none of the CPL/IR instructors I know has ever opposed GPS!

Max

That is one of the most straightforward, rational and intelligent posts on the subject that I have read. :ok:

Just remember you are dealing with the country that has pounds for weight, pounds for money, inches and yards for distance etc.

Some of them are a bit reluctant to take new ideas on board (as an Ex pat Brit, I have some experience of my countrymen.)

It seems the true reason for carrying a GPS aboard a VFR flight has been missed here. Though it is capable of providing incredibly useful navigation information to the pilot, it's true purpose is to be the object of the blame when you have to explain why you were lost.

In the old days, you would have to simply hold the chart, with the pencil line, and try to come up with some reason why you had landed at an airport which was not at the end of that line. It was all your fault! It was just you and the chart, and everyone knows that charts can't be at fault!

Now, with portable GPS (portable for a reason I'll present in a minute), you can use highly technical terminology, make reference to global database errors, great circle routes, and heading vs bearing vs course made good, and generally dazzle your passengers into belieiving that the fact that you ended up lost, was truly not your fault, all while waving your hands around this technological wonder in the radio stack.

To ease your ability to use the GPS as you defense for being lost, and enable a larger audience than you can fit/coax into the cockpit, the GPS manufacturers have kindly made them portable, so you can actually carry that offending artificail intellgence pilot decision making unit to the club house/control tower, or wherever the accusations of pilot failure have originated. You don't have to risk your defense not being accepted, because all you could do was to point to an airplane across the apron, and promiss that there was an offending unit in the radio stack to be blamed.

So, look out the window to your heart's content. Leave the GPS running in the background. If you land where to intended, great! Receive the accolades, and take al the credit (even if you did peek at the GPS). If you ended up somewhere else, you had a great view out the window the whole way along, and you have the GPS to blame, so you pride remains intact! (and after a coffee, you can use it to actually direct you to where you had intended to go in the first place!)

Pilot DAR

My definition of navigation is:

Maintaining straight and level balanced flight along a pre-planned track.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...rnet/zxzxz.jpg

But how you maintain track is down to you. Either by pre-planned visual fixes, pre-planned radio navigation fixes, GPS or a combination of all 3.

Personally, for basic puddlejumping, I like a 'paper' map and line, but also a GPS. But I don't want to stare at the gucci eye-candy of moving maps etc, I just use the CDI for checking any cross-track error.

My activity cycle is thus:

LOOkout for most of the time
Attitude - primarily S&L attitude, fairly obviously.
Instruments - Altimeter confirms correct attitude, ASI confirms correct speed, ball confirms correct balance......and the GPS CDI is the 'trackometer' which confirms that my 'track-itude' is correct!

A chum has an Auster - and a GPS! The GPS altitude is useful as whoever rebuilt his altimeter didn't do a particularly good job as it sticks like crazy, despite all the full-spec Auster vibration!

The GPS. Seems we spend more time dicussing it than flying!

It is very satisfying to navigate without it and when taught to navigate properly, there is no reason to bust airspace in good VFR weather. As someone who uses it everyday, I can't knock GPS, but I do find it nice to do it the old fashioned way when given the opportunity.

But one or two have mentioned airspace and the amount of people using it. Granted in CAS there is much more traffic. But OCAS (and I am thinking ooop north here) there seems to be far less military traffic. There are also fewer military aerodromes than there were say 20 odd years ago. Is navigation really that much harder than it was and is there really that much more hardware to avoid?

Sod all that! i like to use the force!:}

If you can see outside - look outside.

You might besurprised at what you can see and avoid.

Good discussion!
 

This is an interesting discussion.

Pilot DAR, I'd fly with you any day (if you'd have me! :ok:)

My own limited flying experience, but based also on a bit of sailing and a lot of desert driving suggests that GPS allows people to set off without carrying out as much preparation, and to also continue beyond when they would have normally given up.

To answer Max (What Next), I would say that CFIT and continued flight into IMC are more symptoms than problems. GPS cannot cure these issues. The problem for the CFIT accidents in the report are lack of situational awareness caused by concentrating on the GPS, the accidents in IMC are an over confidence in a partial situational awareness (horizontal plane) caused by an implicit confidence in something shown on a screen, while lacking the vertical aspect. :eek:

Perhaps the moving map needs to be removed from the GPS and replaced with a ruler. You do all your flight planning on charts and as you are carrying it out, the GPS watches you. When you get close to controlled airspace, it gives you a prod, if you infringe, you get a smack on the back of your hand.

Cheers,

Tony :)

Tony

I don't mean to be abusive, but you really don't seem to understand how to use a GPS.

Like any tool, it can be misued and if someone chooses to set off under planned, then the problem is their airmanship or seamanship, not the GPS.

It is also part of a suite of nav tools and techniques (including ded reckoning, pilotage, radio nav, vdf etc) and not a stand alone device, so appropriate training on the whole suite is required.

I won't repeat the excellent comments that others have made on good practice in using these aids, but you are starting to sound like an old dog, in a metaphorical sense.

Maybe time to have a think about whether your stance is really sensible.

Hmm... Real pilots fly with fuggles on all the time (or better still, black out the windows). Landing is by sense of touch. You don't need to be able to see out: David Blunkett went for a parachute jump, and someone asked him how he knew when he was approaching the ground. "The guide dog's lead goes limp."

Old dog? Probably!
 

Final 3 Greens:
Hello F3G,

I started this thread because I haven't flown for a long time. When I stopped, GPS was just coming onto the scene and was little more than a CDI made out of little LCD segments connected to a database that comprised airports and some nav-aids.

I'm an engineer (of sorts :)) and have spent most of my working life around aircraft systems. You are right, GPS is a tool. Tools have jobs and procedures for using them.

I'm a kind of tongue in cheek sort of a person and it just strikes me that this "tool" has assumed "God like status" and universal panacea properties! Could we imagine transport aircraft operating within RNP0.5 without precision aids? Should IO-540 (interesting web-site that he has!) be required to navigate up and down France without precision aids? Of course not!

Is GPS required for every little flight that ever takes place? Can you not safely and competently navigate across Europe without? I'm amused by how "risk averse" everyone is! :hmm:

Now, my friend who flies with three GPS, is he on top of the situation?

Cheers,

Tony :cool:

Tony

It's a matter of choice.

For me, I'd always have it running in the background, even on a simple x-country in good weather to comewhere I've been before and I was just using a line on a chart and pilotage as primary nav.

Why? The NRST and DCT functions reduce your workload if something goes wrong and you need to find an airfield ASAP.

Also, if you have to force land in a field, it's handy to be able to give a precise location to the emergency services (even some mobile phones can now do this.)

It's not, for me, a matter of being risk averse (since light aviation is not a risk averse occupation), more a matter of sensible risk mitigation.

As to whether your friend is on top of the situation, I don't know, but managing 2 x GPS, 2 x VOR and a chart never overloaded me, it helped me look out more as I was more certain of position and proactively managing it, not heads down worrying about busintg CAS or a danger zone.

Anyways, enjoy your flying, hope your comeback works out well.

I suppose one could consider me to be an " Old Dog " I guess and I have been trying desperately to stay out of this discussion.....

however....

Which is the safer more responsible pilot?

Those who accept modern aids to operate aircraft and not only learn how to use them but actually use them.

Or.

Those who stay firmly entrenched in the horse and buggy era proud to let one and all know they are content to do it the way it used to be done.

Like Chuck, I've been reading this with interest. When I learned to fly, up in Alaska a long time ago, a basic whiskey compass and keeping the view from the windshield looking like the map was the primary method of VFR nav. Electronics-wise there was the four course low freq range which required only a receiver and a good set of ears. An ADF receiver was a real plus - they pointed where you needed to go. VOR nav required nose-bleed altitudes, not good for VFR. So when GPS came along, it was considered a gift. So much accurate information on stuff I formerly guessed at. Looking out was still primary but knowing that what you saw was what you planned was very reassuring. You people in the EU have it made. There's a town every ten minutes with rivers, railroads and highways everywhere. The GPS confirms your navigation, probably reduces your time enroute by helping you fly a more accurate course thus saving a few euros, pounds or what on fuel.

Only two choices?
 

Chuck Ellsworth:
Oh Chuck. That's not fair! :)

Only two choices?

Don't forget, the last time I flew, there was very little in the way of GPS! Can't I be in a third category where I'm interested in the old way and slightly amused by those who are unable to do things without what looks like the crutches of the modern way? :hmm:

I love gadgets and I have a GPS (which is a great training aid, actually. It shows how sloppy I fly and I have a lot of fun of reviewing the tracks and seeing where I went wrong and where I can do better!)

I love digital maps as well, but I still like planning a route and following that pencil line to see what sort of stuff I'll be bumbling through.

It's funny how every sport has it's "red button subjects". On the sailing boards it is all about MAB (manky auld boats) vs AWB (average white boats) and the arguments are just as passionate!

I was very passionate about flying, then the passion died, now it's back again! See you soon in the skies! :ok:

EASA's consultation NPA 2009-02b, Section IV (Instruments, data & equipment), page 41, OPS.GEN.400 (c) (1) - in the context that instruments not approved by Part 21 may be carried on a flight states "The information provided by these instruments or accessories shall not be used by the flight crew to comply with (a)." (a) refers to equipment which will enable the flight crew to determine the flight path.

This seems to mean that if you carry a GPS that is not Part-21 approved it will be illegal after 2012 to use the information from it for navigational purposes! We may think that carrying a GPS is a step forward, the authorities do not seem to be convinced unless it is priced out of our range.

Tony,

You're not alone, where were you when I was embroiled in this debate? Huh?

I guess somehow we'll manage to continue fly inexplicably straight lines and avoid that devilish airspace that just seems to jump out in front of you :}

I didn't get to be a jedi knight by looking out of windows or using instruments!