GPS or maps?

[Guest Glenn]

Just wondering how many of you use a GPS to navigate and how many use maps?

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

GPS and Maps

 

GPS ... nice to have

 

Maps NEED to have.

 

 

[Guest colt_pa22]

When flying cross country I always take a GPS (Garmin Pilot III), it takes the stress out of flying, esp in marginal weather. Maps are a must, but i don't use them as much as I should.

 

colt

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

Maps..

 

Gents... Don't let the little black box lead you up the garden path.

 

Use it as a back up to YOUR navigation skills. You spent enough time pouring over the books and drawin' lines on maps when you studied Nav.

 

All experienced blokes have been "following the magenta line" when suddenly something went wrong and they had to fall back on their experience. The most catastrophic being the Air New Zealand DC-10 that flew into Mt Erebus in Antarctica, although there was the added phenomenon of, the eye seeing what the mind expected to see but in miniature and it was all over by the time the engines had spooled up to full power.

 

Map-read, map read, map read and know that you KNOW where you are.

 

YOU are an Airman... a manipulator, navigator, radio operator and these days a bush lawyer.

 

I used to go off on holidays in the Tripacer into the remote area for a week to three weeks... no GPS then and learned that it was pretty easy because the maps are good now.

 

I sometimes had discussions with small time pilots with big egos on the principle of IFR. (I follow roads)

 

These puffed up popinjays prided themselves on flying accurately along the straight line they drew on the map... Very commendable, BUT not so practical.

 

They took themselves over some country I diverted around when I looked at it, because, if my trusted engine failed I didn't want to have to put into practice that old adage, "aim one wing at a tree and it'll absorb some of the impact and then the other'll swing round into another tree and absorb more impact.

 

Mate I prefer to aim at the white line down the middle of the road or at least the middle of a dirt road. They're a bit more like what I'm used to landing on than a bunch of trees.

 

Trees hurt!

 

The other thing is, you go down out in the country and there's a good chance you could finish up upside down in a gully hurt BAD, unable to move. The man who comes to find you will be in a vehicle and may not spot you when he passes by while you BLEED.

 

Landing on the road is going to get the interest of the first passer by, who'll get an overwhelming desire to stop and have a chat.

 

There's a pleasure in using "witchcraft" (your knowledge you learned from the books and instructor, experience and experimentation that, that little black box steals from you.

 

As I said before use it as a back up. Check it as if it is a First Officer that says, "Yeah, I got that too!" .

 

Landing on a road... I think it's long enough ago now to blab about.

 

A gent flying back East from Birdsville hadn't given any thought to last light. It's SO bright and a lovely warm colour out west, in the last couple of hours of daylight that you can't envisage darkness.

 

He was soaring like an Eagle Eastwards to Charleville, happy with the world when the colour outside started rapidly going orange-pink and on to dark grey-orange.

 

Radio compass wasn't working too well... all over the place. ( They do that at dawn and dusk).

 

Our airman wasn't sure where he was. The Mulga looks all the same if you haven't been putting little marks on the map every time you recognise where you are.

 

He realized it was time to get on the ground before it was too dark.

 

Where?

 

"Ah! there's a car driving along a road with the headlights on.

 

I'll land behind HIM!"

 

Did all the right things and remembered to put the gear down. "Wouldn't do do get caught" ... had camping gear for the night and could nip off in the morning before anyone found them and dobbed them in."

 

Short final... right on the numbers for the short field landing... feeeling good!

 

Twenty feet and suddenly he's in the dust cloud behind the vehicle, he'd not thought about.

 

Grit the teeth, shut the eyes tightly and WAIT.

 

Bonk he's ON.

 

Brake and try keeping the road in sight through the dust.

 

Successful stop... without hitting anything.

 

Look at each other and then outside.

 

Oh Sheet!

 

They were on a bridge. Not far on!

 

Jumped out and pushed the steed back and a bit down the road to a place where they could get it off the road and set up camp.

 

NOW! this is the story I was told.

 

Some doubt it... I have a question... What did he tell Charleville about where he was landing?

 

But the man who told me this, owned the aeroplane and he wasn't relating it in a funny way. He was MAD and the intrepid one was certainly NEVER flying THAT aircraft again!