AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 20

PROFICIENT PILOT
Magellan wouldn't
believe it
Flying from here to there these days is easy
BY BARRY SCHIFF / AOPA Foundation Legacy Society chairman
OUR TWA JETL INER was southwest of Waypoint DIALO on an
RNAV route connecting southern California with Hawaii. I had
made a short announcement on the PA to inform our passengers
that we had just passed the midpoint of our journey and would be
landing in Honolulu at 9:05 p.m.
Moments later there was a coded sequence of knocks on the
cockpit door. A flight attendant entered and handed me a note from
a passenger who undoubtedly was upset that I had interrupted his
movie. I unfolded the note, which asked, " Why are we off course? "
I passed the note to my first officer. " Some character in 4-B, " I
said with a chuckle. Our three inertial navigation systems agreed
that we were on course. We were also directly below and in line with
Air New Zealand's contrails. It was like following a railroad track
and confirmed that we were tracking precisely along the airway.
I later left the flight deck for a cabin tour-which was legal in
those days-but before returning I headed for passenger 4-B. The
man seated there was busily involved with a then-new handheld
GPS receiver, which could determine aircraft position to within
a few feet. He saw me approaching and extended his right hand.
" Hi, Barry. I'm Ed King. " The avionics pioneer apparently did
know our position more accurately than we did. This was when I
began to realize that the art and science of navigation was coming
to an end. GPS receivers would soon become as commonplace as
four-function calculators.
When I began flying in the early 1950s, the VOR was just
being introduced and many pilots still used Morse code to
" follow the beam. " An A (dot-dash) meant you were on one side
of a beam and hearing an N (dash-dot) meant you were on the
other. A steady tone between the A and the N meant you were
on course. Increasing volume meant you were getting closer to
the low-frequency range station, and vice-versa.
Years of wearing medieval " skull crushers " -there were no
comfy headsets in those days-and enduring static-filled frequencies
explained why hearing loss was an occupational hazard.
Green, Red, Blue, and Amber airways preceded Victor
airways, and progress along them was determined by noting the
identifiers of marker beacons located along the way. A marker
identified by three dots and two dashes, for example, meant that
a pilot was passing the third marker on the second leg (beam) of
a four-course range.
20
AOPA PILOT / January 2024
At night, pilots could navigate along an airway by flying from
one airway beacon to the next. These rotating beacons were placed
about every 10 miles along an airway and flashed a Morse code
letter so that a pilot could determine his progress. The beacons
were lettered W U V H R K D B G and M. This sequence was
repeated every 100 miles and was remembered by learning the
mnemonic " When Undertaking Very Hard Routes Keep Directions
By Good Methods. "
My instrument flight training was divided equally between a
Link trainer and a Stinson Voyager. This was before an artificial
horizon and a directional gyro were required for IFR flight. We
flew using " needle, ball, and airspeed. " This was also before
the advent of the personal hood. Prior to a training flight, the
instructor would cover the insides of our cockpit windows with
pre-shaped panes of orange plexiglass. The student would then
don a pair of blue goggles and the world outside his cockpit would
suddenly become pitch black. Cheating was impossible.
Navigation was challenging. Pilots even got lost on occasion,
which is virtually impossible using GPS. Flying from here to there
these days is as easy as dialing a telephone number and waiting for
distance to count down to zero.
Some pilots no longer refer to charts to see where they are.
They're concerned only with where they're going. Others use
GPS to concoct and execute home-brewed IFR approaches to
VFR-only airports, which proves that complacency does indeed
breed contempt.
Some things in the '50s were easier. Airspace restrictions
were the exception rather than the rule, and regulations were
so few that a pamphlet contained all that a pilot needed to know.
One regulatory quirk caught my eye in 1956 and prompted
me to waltz into an FAA office and request a balloon rating.
The inspector was dumbfounded to learn that there were no
requirements for the certificate. It was free for the asking by any
pilot with a current medical.
Word got out and demand for the rating inflated. The FAA
acted quickly to close that regulatory loophole. This explains
how I obtained my balloon rating
without ever having been in
one. And that's not hot air.
BarrySchiff.com
BARRY SCHIFF has been
writing " Proficient Pilot "
for almost 33 years.
http://www.BarrySchiff.com
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024
