Checkride: Pilotage navigation

These changes occurred as GPS navigation systems were finding their way into general aviation training aircraft, making the older basic navigation skills seem obsolete. Just when students thought they could spend half as much time on the navigation basics, the finer points of the new GPS systems were added to the syllabus.

The pilotage light bulb did not come on for me until my final solo cross-country flight—even though back then, without GPS, I was forced to practice those basics on every flight. So it’s not surprising when modern students struggle with pilotage on checkride day, since much of their minimal cross-country experience has—perhaps appropriately—focused on twenty-first-century GPS navigation. The best solution is to continue navigation training until these necessary skills have been mastered and can be consistently demonstrated. Don’t end the training simply because the minimum hours have been logged, as is so frequently the case.

Suppose that a minimum time requirement were specified prior to a first solo. No competent CFI would solo a student based on simply reaching that minimum time. Yet, sometimes checkride applicants have logged nearly 100 hours, or more, learning to fly—well beyond the minimum time requirements—but somehow, miraculously, were able to master cross-country navigation after logging the exact minimum five hours’ solo cross-country time. Unfortunately, the same thing often holds true for the instrument and night training requirements. If everyone truly learned to fly “by the clock,” we’d all have become private pilots after exactly 40 hours’ experience.

Referring to the practical test standards (and now the new airman certification standards), private pilot applicants are required to navigate using pre-computed headings to track a planned course, and with reference to observed landmarks and checkpoints, estimate groundspeed and fuel consumption, all while remaining within three nautical miles of the desired course—without reference to the GPS. So on checkride day, do not be surprised when your normally trusty GPS gives up the ghost, leaving you with the sobering responsibility of navigating primarily by looking out the window.

This can be daunting if you have not been doing it throughout your training. The ability to translate landmarks on the sectional chart into checkpoints seen outside the window is paramount. And estimating your position—bearing and distance—relative to those landmarks is a critical pilotage skill. Then, the ability to estimate a heading that will take you to your next checkpoint, proceed to it, and locate it is the pilotage skill level that every pilot needs to develop fully—before the checkride.

Most people do not quickly acquire these navigational skills, which can only be fully learned through adequate training and consistent, repeated practice. To help develop and strengthen these important skills each time you fly, start from your known location—perhaps your local practice area—with reference to your sectional chart, and select a new destination. From there, estimate a course and distance, groundspeed, and fuel required to reach it. Now proceed along your new route, identifying visual checkpoints—no GPS—until reaching your goal. Congratulations! You’ve just completed a mini-checkride-style pilotage scenario.

Bob Schmelzer is a Chicago-area designated pilot examiner, a United Airlines captain, and a Boeing 777 line check airman. He has been an active flight instructor since 1972.