Well put comrade! BTW, does part of that training include the hours you spent air racing?Quote:
Originally posted by LuckyBoy1:
Yep, I tell you what, yes, I know you only need a few hours... geeze, I've forgotten the reg it's been so long... for all I remember it was an hour and a half to four hours of navigational training to get your private VFR ticket... which, unfortunately for most to hear, is dangerously too little time.
I was trained a total of 16 hours to start in navigation and 36 hours more of navigational training when I went for my IFR ticket even though it was not required I guess. Again, I did it because it was "suggested" and back then, that's all they had to do and you'd do it... or at least I did!
Through he whole thing, the basic theme ended up going something like...
You try to confirm by three different navigational means what your position is and they should all aggree. If you get to a point where you can't even get two of them to be the same point on the map, you are long and officially lost! At that point, you get on the radio, announce that you ARE lost and take your beatings when you land.
Then, sometime in the early 1980's they went to a more punative sytle of managing private pilots due to what was perceived as some abuse of the honor system. It used to be that if you got lost, you were sat down and scolded and you sent them some documentation showing that you took some more formal navigational training and all would be forgiven. Not anymore man! They slam pilots at every turn these days.
I can't tell you whether the old philosophy for correcting bad piloting was better than the current system. All I'm saying is that especially with cheap avionics being so readily available in such reliable forms that are so easy to use and so many varied systems, you should never, and I mean never have any reason to even doubt where you are and not be able to confirm your position 3 or more ways. For God's sake, you can even get color radar for less than $2,00.00 in a private plane that back in 1970, commercial pilots would kill to have at any price!
The modern guy in me says...
Hey man, just come on down to my part of the world for a few days and I'll show you.
The good old fashioned pilot in me won't let that happen because I know I'm not rated to instruct on the subject. Navigation courses are available. Are they required?... who cares? They are beneficial, so if you haven't done it, you are shooting cr@ps with your and the publics safety and you know it!
What you do about it is up to you!

