Scary Read In Wings This Month.

[arctic_front]

I'm not sure if any of you have heard of this technique before but there are more than a few stiff-winged bush pilots I know personally that use the GPS to achieve IFR approaches in very poor weather and "auger down over a pre-set waypoint such as a large lake, or flat vally. most of the time, the surrounding terrain is quite nasty or steep. all this takes place in remote areas far from an airport.
places like fishing/hunting camps or other areas where TC never gets too. They use this method to 'get the job done' as a matter-of-fact, not on rare occasions like a medivac ect. There is nothing in aviation that I've ever heard of that is that stupid. No radar, no FSS, just GPS "prescision approaches" in the middle of nowhere.

 

[cap]

Arctic_front ------- concur with your thoughts entirely, but having did the fixed-wing "bush thing" eons ago for a company called Lamb Airways, I understand the "mindset" involved. I say I understand it only......but don't agree.

Deep Throat II -------1) I understand fully that loosing a map out the window/door can and does happen. How many guys that have a GPS go u/s have the same exact idea where they are as if they had themselves beneath the point of their finger on a map? Loosing that map doesn't mean that you don't now know where you are. If it does, then you can't read a map anyways and loosing it didn't make any difference anyway. 2) After serving time in the US Armed Forcs, I trust absolutely nothing 100% that is owned by, put up by, or maintained by the USAF. They don't control my HF, my ADF and sure as Hell don't control my finger on an 8:1 or 4:1 map........nor does my CP, Ops Manager or the PM of Canada......I'm the "Head Mother whose in charge" of my navigation. Unfortunately, I'm a product of the time before something called ELT's. We had something called SARAH beacons and you wouldn't want to be putting all your trust into one of those either......they sometimes "went south on you" also. In otherwards, you learned to trust only you and you learned your "trade" of navigation to the "nth degree" and NEVER put your life in the hands of ONE navigation instrument because of that or you didn't come home again.

I'm going to really "date" myself now and raise some "hackles" I'm sure, but here goes. I witnessed this all begin to happen when they decided eons ago that one could walk in off the street, get 100 hrs. of training and "off you go". So off you went to northern Alberta or the Arctic and you had a magnetic compass that hadn't been truly "swung" with a Land Compass since Christ was a Lance Corporal in the Salvation Army and an DG. Ahhhhh, the wonderful DG......something that was probably u/s by the time you passed Barrhead, Alberta. So back to the g.d 8:1 and now you better be able to use it because the fuel stops were very limited, the wx was closing in and it was -20F outside. .....Grrrrrrrr. It helped a lot if one had already been in the same enviroment with a fixed wing and one had some navigation experience and knowledge of "I've been here before, so don't get rattled".......and God Bless Lycoming, the 1340 and the Wasp for keeping me safe to relate this passage.

Sorry for the length of this, but my only excuse is that it's a factor of the aging process..... damnit.

 

[twinstar_ca]

nothing wrong with a lengthy rant, cap, especially on a subject as important than this...

i'm still of the old agage that if it's mechanical, it can go u/s and then you better have some airmanship skills up your sleeve...

come to think of it, i wonder if i still remember how to even use my E6B... never know when the batteries in my cx-1 pathfinder may die!!!

 

[Zazu]

Still remember logging years ago and the 61 had a cross country from southern BC to northern BC. Now why two 61 caps had no maps but considering I had just finished flight school, I didn't feel too geeky when they asked me for one or two for their trip. To this day still carry maps. Although a GPS sure makes you look good out in the flat land with 30 or 40 survey spots to go to.

 

[cap]

Agree totally Zazu. I have no problem at all with new-age navigation aides. ......the more the better. What I have a problem with is throwing out all the other aides and relying on the one new-age navigation aide totally. I didn't do that with the "old-age" nav aides, so why would I do it with the new-age ones?