My student got lost...

[genetk44]

Maybe I'll come out to Nebraska next summer.

If you wanted to land to get your bearings, I would permit that, but unless it's an emergency you probably should be aware of where you're landing. PLenty of bad things can happen by just willy nilly landing at some random airport you see that you know nothing about. If you need to land at an airport and you don't know what that airport even is called yet alone it's NOTAMS or airspace then I consider you doing that because you think you have an emergency. Which means we'll be doing the lesson again and again until you can get lost and get back to your course without making it into an emergency.

If I doubted your ability to navigate simply by looking out the window I would fail pretty much your entire panel and we'd be doing a cross country like that. We'd keep doing that until you felt comfortable by navigating based on what you saw outside. My signature, my way If you didn't believe my way was the right way you could feel free to find yourself a new instructor. I do this because I want to train the best pilots I can -- not because I care if you pay me after the flight. Worst case you drop me and I get to go fishing instead

When I am done with my students they are the best I can make them with or without everything in the airplane working.

Thankfully the vast majority of students I've had have understood that although they might not LIKE what I'm doing when I do it to them they'll appreciate it afterwords.

 

[jesse]

But for 30 minutes, you didn't let him look out the window. You purposely setup the situation where he flew the wrong way for 30 minutes (without letting him look out the windows to quickly catch it).

When I fly, I have landmarks every 10-15 minutes, and I try to keep obvious landmarks in site all the time (rivers, lakes, roads, etc). I am constantly looking at my map, and making sure I am going where I think I should be.

You setup a senario that's cool. however the only way it can happen, is if I am in IFR conditions, as the most I can currently get lost, is 10-15 minutes. When I do get lost, I know how many mile radius I am lost from. I also know what I flew over for the last 10-15 minutes.

For your situation to happen in real life, I would need to have been in IFR conditions for 30 minutes, with failed avionics. When I pop out of IFR and am back into VFR with parts of my plane broken and no clue where I am, you better damn well know I am landing.

There are many different ways you can get yourself lost. I've done night cross countries over portions of South Dakota with nothing but a compass, stop watch, and sectional and it's pretty easy to get yourself "lost" for awhile.

Once you get into 180 knot airplanes it's pretty easy to become overly reliant on technology like your GPS. When you're covering three miles per minute it's a little more difficult to always know where you're at especially when you might be dealing with a sick passenger or whatever else. Suddenly your electrical system fails and you just went from "not lost" to "lost" in an instant.

The best way to sharpen pilotage skills is by requiring you use every trick you can think up which is what you need to do when you're not sure where you're at.

Knowing how to recover from a lost scenario is a valuable skill and is something one should be good at before they take their private check-ride, as it's part of the PTS:

Task D: Lost Procedures (ASEL and ASES)
References: FAA-H-8083-25; AIM; Navigation Chart.
Objective: To determine that the applicant:
1. Exhibits satisfactory knowledge of the elements related to
lost procedures.
2. Selects an appropriate course of action.
3. Maintains an appropriate heading and climbs, if necessary.
4. Identifies prominent landmarks.
5. Uses navigation systems/facilities and/or contacts an ATC
facility for assistance, as appropriate.

I cover *EVERY* part of the PTS with a student before their check-ride. As detailed as I can. It is my goal to make my mock check-rides several times harder than the DPE will be...which means their real checkride is a piece of cake.

 

[Sam D]

But for 30 minutes, you didn't let him look out the window. You purposely setup the situation where he flew the wrong way for 30 minutes (without letting him look out the windows to quickly catch it).

When I fly, I have landmarks every 10-15 minutes, and I try to keep obvious landmarks in site all the time (rivers, lakes, roads, etc). I am constantly looking at my map, and making sure I am going where I think I should be.

You setup a senario that's cool. however the only way it can happen, is if I am in IFR conditions, as the most I can currently get lost, is 10-15 minutes. When I do get lost, I know how many mile radius I am lost from. I also know what I flew over for the last 10-15 minutes.

For your situation to happen in real life, I would need to have been in IFR conditions for 30 minutes, with failed avionics. When I pop out of IFR and am back into VFR with parts of my plane broken and no clue where I am, you better damn well know I am landing.

On an IR checkride, you're required to do a partial panel approach. For me to lose my attitude indicator, I'd need the following to happen:
1) My Aspen craps out for some reason
2) My vacuum system craps out
3) My backup vacuum system craps out
(And the list of equipment is even longer before I'd need to rely on my compass) How likely is this? Well, if it ever did, I should probably go straight to vegas.

That being said, to be able to do a partial panel approach, you need to have all the other aspects of flying down cold to be able to manage this issue. Sure, you can rationalize why this would never happen to you. But that's really not the point of the exercise.

 

[Mafoo]

Are you saying you do not want to be flying because WWIII has broken out hence the down GPS system or are you saying that you will not fly in an airplane without a functional GPS, period?

I am saying 95% of everyone else in the sky just lost there primary form of navigation. I don't want to be up there while they dig out there maps, and play with there VOR stuff that they havent used in 10 years.

 

[Mafoo]

That being said, to be able to do a partial panel approach, you need to have all the other aspects of flying down cold to be able to manage this issue. Sure, you can rationalize why this would never happen to you. But that's really not the point of the exercise.

I would hope the point of the exercise is to make sure you are not going to injure someone when a senario like the one above happens.

It's a good exercise. In real life I would do one of the following:

Climb and look for something obvious.
Use my iPhone GPS.
Use my iPad GPS.
Call Flight following and tell them I was in IFR conditions for 30 minutes, and now I am lost.
Find a small airport, and land. I would pick small, because 99% of the time they are uncontrolled, so everyone there should fly like no one has a radio.

The last thing I want to do is fly around looking for landmarks, when I don't know where I am. I could be flying into a TFR, busy class B airspace, or other restricted areas (there is a good chance I am in it already if my 3 GPS systems aren't working).

It seems however, that none of the above solutions would allow Jesse to give me his signature.

 

[bobmrg]

Wow, that is EVIL!

Really valuable, I'd guess, as well.

FYI, using the sun for navigation doesn't mean you have to see it. At midday, all shadows point north. You could use shadows from one of those water towers just as easily as something inside the aircraft.

Around here, most airports have their names emblazoned on a taxiway (usually the parallel to the runway), so it's never necessary to land to figure out where you are. Some airports will get you in hot water if you land without permission in less than an emergency. And being lost isn't an emergency unless you also have low fuel.

I wondered when someone was going to point out that the sun (when visible) is always south of the US, even when "overhead."

Bob Gardner

 

[MAKG1]

For your situation to happen in real life, I would need to have been in IFR conditions for 30 minutes, with failed avionics. When I pop out of IFR and am back into VFR with parts of my plane broken and no clue where I am, you better damn well know I am landing.

No. Not IFR. MVFR will do just fine. So will CAVU conditions above the clouds. Fair-weather cumulus can hide critical ground features and still be perfectly safe to pass through (as long as the cumulus isn't growing). Or just navigation across featureless or identical terrain, especially in an unfamiliar area. It's also surprisingly hard to tell a major highway from a smaller highway from the air.

For instance, it's really easy to confuse CA-99 (a major north-south freeway between Bakersfield and Sacramento) from Merced County Rd 37 (a minor highway), and it doesn't help that the sectional shows them nearly identically (except for a railroad, but those are harder to spot from the air than you would think), near KMER. If you're headed north from Castle, this will get you lost (south, they merge).

I got myself a little lost via pilotage when I went sighseeing in southern Washington. I was trying to find the town of Toledo for a bio break prior to launching up to Mt. St. Helens. I knew I was close, due to terrain, highways, a river and time elapsed from the turn off the Columbia river. But all those features are linear, pointing in the same direction. At all times, I could find my way back to Portland; this was obvious. But finding Toledo was tougher than expected. I had to zigzag a bit to find some recognizable landmarks. I eventually found it, after some 5 minutes of looking. I spotted a key bridge across the river and it all fell into place. This was on a "four peak day," meaning four of the major cascade peaks were visible from that spot (Rainier, Adams, St. Helens and Hood) -- very good visibility around 80 miles.

The point is, it's easier to get lost than you think. Especially since you insist on using toy GPSs as a first backup. They can and will give you wrong answers without warning, and they share single point failures with all other GPS receivers.

And having a DG off 90 deg isn't hard to imagine. I've seen precession of 10s of degrees before. And I've seen an HSI fail in flight so that it always read the same, regardless of what direction you were really going (it did pop out a NAV flag). This is when all those written-test questions about magnetic compass errors come into play.

 

[eetrojan]

I spun his DG 90 degrees off heading

As a very low-hour, pre-solo student, I think you're evil, but in a good way.

OK, dumb question, my plane has a glass panel that displays a heading tape on the top, and a DG on the right side. It's a Dynon EFIS-D100. The plane also has a magnetic compass.

Should I routinely check for agreement between the panel's DG and the compass?

Can my instructor, in a moment of evil-ness, "spin" the DG on this panel too?

 

[denverpilot]

Can my instructor, in a moment of evil-ness, "spin" the DG on this panel too?

What does the POH say?

 

[MarkL]

Sadly I've done a derivative of this... letting a student fly after missing his first waypoint (one giant honking lake 5 miles west of town) and subsequently missing waypoint after waypoint until we were more than 45 miles out of town and over 20 miles off course and making no effort what so ever to find himself or show concern about all the missing waypoints. Saddest day of my career.

 

[MAKG1]

I wondered when someone was going to point out that the sun (when visible) is always south of the US, even when "overhead."

Bob Gardner

Actually, it isn't. At sunset or sunrise on a long summer day, it will be north of east/west. At my latitude, up to about 20 deg. More as you go further north. 50 miles north of Fairbanks, AK, the sun will be low on the northern horizon at midnight in late June.

But if it's near midday, it's south. Anywhere north of the Tropic of Cancer, on any day.

We have to do sunset azimuth calculations at work, as it tells us when we can open the cavity door. A 2.5m magnifying glass isn't a good thing to get sunlight on. It's not good enough to point it north in the summer.

This means flying toward the setting sun is not west, except on two days (no, not the equinoxes, unless you fly on the equator).

 

[brcase]

Yes. The whole GPS constellation was just knocked off-line by some silly software bug a government programmer made. The PTS does require one can navigate without a GPS. This isn't a real emergency, it's a skill building exercise.


This was mid-day-ish. The sun was no use at all. It was "up" and out of sight.

I fly with a guy that routinely makes trips to Mexico from Idaho. He has told me about one trip where he followed the GPS directly to his destination airport and found absolutely nothing there but sagebrush. He say that was rather disorienting when you expect GPS to be so accurate. After triangulating his position on a couple VOR stations he discovered he was about 10 miles off course, even though the GPS said he was there. To be fair there was a Notam for GPS testing in much of Nevada.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL

 

[MAKG1]

Should I routinely check for agreement between the panel's DG and the compass?

Pull out a POH (there are a bunch online, plus one in your aircraft) and see what the cruise checklist says.

 

[eetrojan]

What does the POH say?

Ah yes, the aviation equivalent of RTFM.:wink2:

The POH, written in Czech-English, says nothing about the panel. The Dynon guide, however, talks about a calibration procedure that must be done on the ground. It requires you to align the airplane with the cardinal directions one after the other ("An airport compass rose works well.") - north, east, south, west - and then press a bunch of buttons when pointed in each direction.

so, I think I'm safe from this sort of in-air chicanery, but you never know.

 

[MAKG1]

The GPS is not the only thing that failed him. So did his 6 Pack (because it would not have done a 90 degree move on it's own).

Wrong. Gyros precess, all on their own, even when working perfectly. Some of them can even be confused by abrupt maneuvering (say, avoiding the panel driver who cut you off because he was heads down).

You really need to put those GPS's away. They are interfering with your training.

 

[denverpilot]

Ah yes, the aviation equivalent of RTFM.:wink2:

Well, I *am* a Unix guy after all... LOL...

The POH, written in Czech-English, says nothing about the panel. The Dynon guide, however, talks about a calibration procedure that must be done on the ground. It requires you to align the airplane with the cardinal directions one after the other ("An airport compass rose works well.") - north, east, south, west - and then press a bunch of buttons when pointed in each direction.

so, I think I'm safe from this sort of in-air chicanery, but you never know.

Sounds like it, but more importantly I'd want to know WHAT I was "aligning" in the Dynon doing that routine and how often it was expected to fail and/or become inaccurate. (Since I know nothing about Dynon...)

A Google search popped up this thread... which has some details on how to do the calibration and how the screen shows GPS data, not compass data when in the calibration screen... but no details on how often, what's being aligned, etc...

http://dynonavionics.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1343913229

 

[MAKG1]

The POH, written in Czech-English, says nothing about the panel.

I don't know what kind of aircraft you fly, but I found this in my Cessna POH, without any trouble.

A directional indicator displays airplane heading on a compass card in relation to a fixed simulated airplane image and index. The indicator will precess slightly over a period of time. Therefore, the compass card should be set in accordance with the magnetic compass just prior to takeoff, and occasionally re-adjusted on extended flights. A knob on th elower left edge of the instrument is used to adjust the compass card to correct for precession.

Some DGs are auto-corrected, especially when slaved with an AHRS as is used in glass panels. But they should be checked anyway.

 

[eetrojan]

Should I routinely check for agreement between the panel's DG and the compass?

Pull out a POH (there are a bunch online, plus one in your aircraft) and see what the cruise checklist says.

I just looked, but it doesn't seem very helpful.

4.5.8 Cruise
1. Throttle lever ----- as necessary
2. Airspeed ----- max. 5500 RPM
3. Engine instruments ----- check
4. Fuel quantity ----- check
5. Carb. Preheater ----- as necessary



It's essentially a word picture of the cartoon on the home page of this site:

By the way, it's an Evektor Sportstar. I notice that the POH is not nearly as complete as those for Cessnas.

 

[dmspilot]

Ah yes, the aviation equivalent of RTFM.:wink2:

The POH, written in Czech-English, says nothing about the panel. The Dynon guide, however, talks about a calibration procedure that must be done on the ground. It requires you to align the airplane with the cardinal directions one after the other ("An airport compass rose works well.") - north, east, south, west - and then press a bunch of buttons when pointed in each direction.

Called swinging the compass, that's actually the procedure for calibrating it for deviation. Sounds like you have the equivalent of a slaved HI, which of course doesn't precess.

 

[MAKG1]

I just looked, but it doesn't seem very helpful.

4.5.8 Cruise
1. Throttle lever ----- as necessary
2. Airspeed ----- max. 5500 RPM
3. Engine instruments ----- check
4. Fuel quantity ----- check
5. Carb. Preheater ----- as necessary



By the way, it's an Evektor Sportstar. I notice that the POH is not nearly as complete as those for Cessnas.

Something has to correct a gyro instrument for precession. It can be an AHRS or flux gate compass, but commonly on the steam-gauge aircraft, it's the pilot. I've seen these precess at a rate of as much as 10 deg/hour. A 1 deg error is a 1 mile deviation for a 60 mile leg, so you can do the estimate of how often. There isn't a VFR standard, but 5 miles deviation in MVFR can get you totally lost.

 

[denverpilot]

Something has to correct a gyro instrument for precession. It can be an AHRS or flux gate compass, but commonly on the steam-gauge aircraft, it's the pilot. I've seen these precess at a rate of as much as 10 deg/hour.

It would appear the Dynon (just doing some guesswork here) is using rate-based accelerometers and calibrates them to GPS. Totally not the type of system most of us are used to.

 

[MAKG1]

It would appear the Dynon (just doing some guesswork here) is using rate-based accelerometers and calibrates them to GPS. Totally not the type of system most of us are used to.

That's not enough for heading.

It would need some kind of magnetic measurement. But it wouldn't surprise me if it had that as well.

What's a rate based accelerometer? Those are two different sensors where I come from. Accelerometers aren't much more than a damped mass on a spring. It's the gyros that can be "rate based." Ring laser gyros have no moving parts, and read out rates, rather than attitudes. They also precess (well, drift), but for different reasons.

 

[denverpilot]

There's a separate mag compass unit that feeds data to the AHRS also, and it has a completely different calibration. At least going by quick Google searches...

I'd not say I know anything about it really at this point. Probably not going to pursue it further until a Dynon crosses my path.

Definitely worth pursuing more info for those flying behind them though.

Now back to our regularly scheduled CFI schennanigans... (In this thread anyway.)

 

[spiderweb]

Funny thing is the cessna 162 skycatcher that my school has, does not have a magnetic compass - has pfd, mfd but no other backup system. I guess those LRUs never fail or have some clever redundancy

Cirrus doesn't have one, either.

 

[brcase]

But for 30 minutes, you didn't let him look out the window. You purposely setup the situation where he flew the wrong way for 30 minutes (without letting him look out the windows to quickly catch it).

When I fly, I have landmarks every 10-15 minutes, and I try to keep obvious landmarks in site all the time (rivers, lakes, roads, etc). I am constantly looking at my map, and making sure I am going where I think I should be.

You setup a senario that's cool. however the only way it can happen, is if I am in IFR conditions, as the most I can currently get lost, is 10-15 minutes. When I do get lost, I know how many mile radius I am lost from. I also know what I flew over for the last 10-15 minutes.

For your situation to happen in real life, I would need to have been in IFR conditions for 30 minutes, with failed avionics. When I pop out of IFR and am back into VFR with parts of my plane broken and no clue where I am, you better damn well know I am landing.

And his point wasn't how to get lost, it was how to get found after you get lost. As you point out it is difficult to get intentionally lost, even more difficult for an instructor to intentionally get a student lost.

How would you handle the situation I posted above when all 3 of your GPS say you are at the airport and all you can see is Sage brush in every direction?

That is what Jesse was evaluating what how does the student react while things aren't going as expected.


Brian
CFIIG/ASEL

 

[Jeanie]

I wish I taught where we had airports close enough to each other to do these kinds of mean things but it doesn't lend itself well to that out here...

However, I will be pondering new mean things I can do nodding

 

[bbchien]

No idea, I haven't given much of any dual in fully glass cockpit airplanes. I'm pretty comfortable with Aspens and most any GPS...but haven't flown G1000 like airplanes much.

The answer is a real world scenario- the VCU breaker. Everthing go "X".

 

[Matthew]

My CFI used to pull circuit breakers and turn off one side of the master switch every now and then when I wasn't looking.

I did learn that every flight something was going to happen. I do have to admit, though, that it did get old after a while.

 

[spinfire]

One good thing to add to the lost procedures is to pull the power back somewhat and slow down. It will conserve fuel. Plus if you might be going in the wrong direction you might as well be going there slower.

 

[somorris]

It sounds to me like Jesse's student did just fine. He thought he knew where he was and did the right things when he realized he didn't. It took him a little while (maybe too long) but he did find himself when he realized he didn't know where he was. It will be a good lesson though in checking the DG against the compass and maybe using all his resources to keep up with where he is.

 

[flyingmoose]

Very nice. I like some of your techniques. I might have to steal some of them. Good job

 

[Mafoo]

Wrong. Gyros precess, all on their own, even when working perfectly. Some of them can even be confused by abrupt maneuvering (say, avoiding the panel driver who cut you off because he was heads down).

You really need to put those GPS's away. They are interfering with your training.

My answer has nothing to do with if I know how to navigate or not. If the exercise was to put on a blindfold, have my CFI fly me somewhere for an unknown amount of time, and then use a chart to try and figure out where I am, I think I could do that.

That was not what was being asked. The senario is what would I do if all those things happened to me in real life. I would land.

I still don't think that's the wrong answer.

 

[EppyGA]

My answer has nothing to do with if I know how to navigate or not. If the exercise was to put on a blindfold, have my CFI fly me somewhere for an unknown amount of time, and then use a chart to try and figure out where I am, I think I could do that.

That was not what was being asked. The senario is what would I do if all those things happened to me in real life. I would land.

I still don't think that's the wrong answer.

I missed the blindfold part. Dude put on the hood and then never checked the DG. Personally while VFR I probably cross check at least every five minutes and if I'm under the hood or IFR that frequency is going to increase.

 

[douglas393]

Great thread. I for one however if I was that lost would be calling ATC and calling for help. Flying around all day long looking at names on towers waiting to run out of fuel just doesn't sound like a great day for me.

Doug

 

[TangoWhiskey]

Great job, Jesse! This is what we pay our instructors to do.. Put us in learning situations.

Man, I sure hope I remember to check compass against DG first thing, the next time an instructor tells me I'm lost or to divert!

 

[Mafoo]

I missed the blindfold part. Dude put on the hood and then never checked the DG. Personally while VFR I probably cross check at least every five minutes and if I'm under the hood or IFR that frequency is going to increase.

That's what got him lost. We are talking about what to do once you realize your lost.

 

[Everskyward]

This thread makes me feel old.

It doesn't feel like too long ago that GPS was a gee-whiz new thing. Now it seems the majority would be so uncomfortable without it that they would defer a trip or land.

 

[spiderweb]

The answer is a real world scenario- the VCU breaker. Everthing go "X".

That's what I thought. Of course, you'd have to ask me to pull the breaker in the Cirrus, since the right-seat occupant has to contort a bit to get there.

 

[spiderweb]

This thread makes me feel old.

It doesn't feel like too long ago that GPS was a gee-whiz new thing. Now it seems the majority would be so uncomfortable without it that they would defer a trip or land.

I sure hope not. If so, we're in a sorry state.

 

[Mafoo]

This thread makes me feel old.

It doesn't feel like too long ago that GPS was a gee-whiz new thing. Now it seems the majority would be so uncomfortable without it that they would defer a trip or land.

No, it's not that the GPS is gone. It's why. If all my gps's are gone, and my panel has newly broken avionics in it, and I happen to have been lost in the fist place, something makes me feel like I should get not the ground as soon as possible to figure it all out.

Why is that such a bad thing?