When we don't know where we are...

[jcomm 5,890]

Tittle can look misleading, but it's the theme that is so...

In soaring 99,99% of my colleagues have their gliders equipped like Airbuses... I love to see the apparatus, and they still carry with them some extra instruments, but honestly, I still take my map with me, and a simplified E6-B, and a 45 euro 2nd hand Kobo Mini I seldom manage to even switch on - with Top-Hat Soaring, just in case I get lost, and lower than I should :-). But the bellow story, and the thread I got it from another forum are Hard Stuff... So, for the "tougher" here it is...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_188_Pacific_rescue

The thread where I got it from is about Polar Navigation, and rises interesting questions too, so, for the curious, here's the link to it too:

http://aerowinx.com/board/index.php?topic=5282.0

Edited June 9, 2019 by jcomm

[Murmur 3,941]

I watched the related movie based on the events some time ago. Very good movie and quite accurate!

[Murmur 3,941]

A nice reading about the events here:

http://www.navworld.com/navcerebrations/mayday.htm

[John_Cillis 2,406]

On 6/9/2019 at 6:40 AM, Murmur said:

I watched the related movie based on the events some time ago. Very good movie and quite accurate!

 

[birdguy 3,943]

Have any of you ever been lost while flying in the real world?

I was once.  I was flying a Cherokee 180 with three passengers from Ogden Utah to the Canyonlands Area of southern Utah.  We were flying over what they call The Maze; a labyrinth of canyons where it is easy to get disoriented looking out at such beautiful scenery.

I found myself lost but I put the chart on my lap and got a bearing to the Hanksville VOR and another to the Grand Junction VOR.  The intersection of the two told me exactly where I was.  I headed for Canyonlands Airport where I landed and we had lunch. 

Not exactly like the situation above, but lost is lost and not a good feeling.

Noel

[John_Cillis 2,406]

On 6/12/2019 at 10:00 AM, birdguy said:

Have any of you ever been lost while flying in the real world?

I was once.  I was flying a Cherokee 180 with three passengers from Ogden Utah to the Canyonlands Area of southern Utah.  We were flying over what they call The Maze; a labyrinth of canyons where it is easy to get disoriented looking out at such beautiful scenery.

I found myself lost but I put the chart on my lap and got a bearing to the Hanksville VOR and another to the Grand Junction VOR.  The intersection of the two told me exactly where I was.  I headed for Canyonlands Airport where I landed and we had lunch. 

Not exactly like the situation above, but lost is lost and not a good feeling.

Noel

When I took flight lessons, always in VFR, I was surprised how hard it was to spot the airport, even though I knew the landmarks well.  My CFI taught me first, not to become spatially disoriented by too much gauge scanning, which he said was the habit for simmers like I was.  My CFI used MSFS as well, in part for IFR training.  To avoid getting lost, he always had me learn visual waypoints, such as mountain peaks, canals and freeway/road intersections near Falcon field where I was taking flight lessons. 

Although the GPS kept me aware of where the field was, it required taking my eyes off the sky, which my CFI said is a "no no" in heavily congested areas, especially in Light Sport aircraft which do not have traffic avoidance gauges, at least the steam gauge Allegro 2000 I took my lessons in. 

Even when I flew trikes, last time outside of Double Eagle field in ABQ some years ago, it was easy in VFR to lose the direction of the field unless I learned the landmarks on my way away from the field.  Also we often did not land on the same runway or in the same direction in trikes that we took off from due to populated developments on approach which we avoided for noise abatement.  We carried a handheld gps when we flew trikes mounted to the trapeze, but VFR navigation was a must most of the time.

When I learned to fly trikes, outside of the unmapped airstrip of Brenda AZ owned by my CFI back then, my CFI would have me practice engine out landings in a desert wash to the E>NE of his field in Brenda, with a scant 100 yards of usable surface to take off.  Again, I learned to find it by visual ground reference since a gps was useless and winds caused us some drift.  On my very last flight with my trike CFI, before he declared me fit to fly alone, we had to fly in extreme 20 knot winds aloft, which he said were perfect for turns around a point and S turns, which take more finesse in a trike than fixed wing since a trike has no rudder input.  But he got nervous in flight and I had to calm him down, he was afraid we could not land but I pointed out if we landed with the wind, the wind shadow caused by a small hill would calm the air for landing.  So that is what we did and he was one happy camper and quite amazed I did not panic. 

One reason is we could have put down into the wind almost anywhere with a 10 knot or so landing speed, as a last resort.

Although it would have been a big walk back to Brenda, LOL!

John

[skully 1,045]

On 6/12/2019 at 12:00 PM, birdguy said:

Have any of you ever been lost while flying in the real world?

I've never been lost, I've just never been there before.

[n4gix 4,947]

47 minutes ago, skully said:

I've never been lost, I've just never been there before.

Like you, I've never been lost; I always know precisely where I am...

...however, I am sometimes unsure of how to get from where I am to where I want to be!

[BillCusick 75]

...and on my way there, I've got to often look back, so that I know how to get home again when I get there.....😰