VFR by GPS

CID · Post by **CID** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:29 am

From the CADORs:

The privately-registered Piper PA-28R-180 Archer aircraft was on a VFR flight from Thunder Bay Airport (CYQT) to Gore Bay-Manitoulin Airport (CYZE). The pilot reported that the GPS not working and that he was lost. Toronto ACC identified aircraft and, in conjunction with London F.I.C. staff, directed pilot for an uneventful landing at Wawa Airport (CYXZ). Ops. impact - unknown.

pika · Post by **pika** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 10:25 am

If that wasn't so sad it would be funny...

Hedley · Post by **Hedley** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 10:28 am

Get used to it - it's going to happen more and more in the future.

Actually, even without any other nav eqpt, it's pretty easy to deal with VFR GPS failure, if you have a heading indicator:

1) push on the rudder pedals until "bearing" and "track" are the same
2) write down heading (or set the bug, if you have one)
3) write down ETA that GPS gives you

Now, if the GPS goes mammary glands upwards, hold this thing called a "heading" and remember to "look down" at the ETA

Nobody ever bothers to do the above, but it works pretty well.

pika · Post by **pika** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 10:34 am

I have an easier solution.

1. Get a map
2. Draw a line
3. Remain VFR and follw line

FrankD · Post by **FrankD** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 10:59 am

In high school I worked at Toronto Airways and we had a student who had more money than brains. He would never draw a line on a map, would always program his cross country into his handheld gps. This worked okay for him right until the flight test.

He goes into the ground briefing and the examiner asks to see all of his planning and the student shows him everything planned out on the gps. He asks if there is any paper back up. The student replies "no". They go up on the flight and start the cross country portion. About 30 sec in the examiner reaches over and takes the gps and says "your batteries just died." The student, being clever, reaches into a shirt pocket and produces a spare set and grins at the examiner. The examiner reaches over and takes the spare batteries and tosses them into the baggage area at the back and says one word: "turbulence". Needless to say the grin on the students face dissappeared pretty quick.

Last time I checked, maps and pencils don't need batteries and aren't subject to sunspots etc.

Map reading/navigation is a skill instructors need to teach students. It might just save their ass one day.

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 12:32 pm

Of course following a line on a map is the way to fly VFR, but a wise pilot will also use a GPS for all the extra information these devices give you....like real time ground speed.....for instance.

pika · Post by **pika** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 12:36 pm

How did wise pilots do it in the pre GPS era? I'm all for advanced avionics in airplanes but not at the expense of fools getting lost on a VFR days when the magic doesn't work.

F/O Crunch · Post by **F/O Crunch** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 12:55 pm

FrankD wrote:In high school I worked at Toronto Airways and we had a student who had more money than brains. He would never draw a line on a map, would always program his cross country into his handheld gps. This worked okay for him right until the flight test.

He goes into the ground briefing and the examiner asks to see all of his planning and the student shows him everything planned out on the gps. He asks if there is any paper back up. The student replies "no". They go up on the flight and start the cross country portion. About 30 sec in the examiner reaches over and takes the gps and says "your batteries just died." The student, being clever, reaches into a shirt pocket and produces a spare set and grins at the examiner. The examiner reaches over and takes the spare batteries and tosses them into the baggage area at the back and says one word: "turbulence". Needless to say the grin on the students face dissappeared pretty quick.

Last time I checked, maps and pencils don't need batteries and aren't subject to sunspots etc.

Map reading/navigation is a skill instructors need to teach students. It might just save their ass one day.

If what you say IS true,
Crazier thing is how he got as far as being up flying with a flight examiner without ever drawing lines or using any fundamental flight planning techniques! Way to to go TA!

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 12:55 pm

How did wise pilots do it in the pre GPS era?

How did people travel before steam engines and internal combustion engines were invented?

I'm all for advanced avionics in airplanes but not at the expense of fools getting lost on a VFR days when the magic doesn't work.

Good for you, you are becoming a wise pilot.

pika · Post by **pika** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 12:58 pm

Good for you, you are becoming a wise pilot.

Can i use you for a reference?

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:33 pm

Can i use you for a reference?

No.

Elessar_44 · Post by **Elessar_44** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 5:22 pm

Yikes. In flight school a couple of the a/c had moving maps in them (the nicer 172 RGs) but as students we always used them as secondary sources. We made sure our VORs and Radials were correct, we looked at the ground and then the map...basically we didn't really on those metal heaps up in space.

Scary.

sakism · Post by **sakism** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 6:30 am

There is really no excuse for getting lost on a solid VFR day, however, people were doing it long before they had GPSs to fail.

That said - why shouldn't you '...rely on those metal heaps up in space'? There is quite a prejudice against those poor devices. Tried to get certification to do GPS approaches lately?

It is patently ridiculous. Why is your GPS any more likely to fail than any other piece of Nav equipment in the plane?

Why shouldn't buddy do all his planning on his handheld GPS? What about all the paperless cockpits and electronic flight bags around these days?

Embrace the future, make use of the tools that are becoming available to us. Of course, lone must learn to deal with the failure of any equipment, but failing to use everything available is just as bad.

just curious · Post by **just curious** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 6:40 am

How did wise pilots do it in the pre GPS era? I'm all for advanced avionics in airplanes but not at the expense of fools getting lost on a VFR days when the magic doesn't work.

We had Omega (and an Astro Compass).

Oh, and we could read a map. In fact, I did that the other day, just to amaze my FO. But he had maps in better condition.

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 6:47 am

We had Omega (and an Astro Compass).

We had GNS( and an Astro Compass. )

***********************************************

Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate - By . .

Finally after over a week of just plain tough flying weather the stars came out and we would depart Johnston Point on Banks Island for what should be an easy flight. This flight would turn out to be remembered forever as one of the closest calls I have ever had in almost fifty years of flying. The year was 1975, late February. We were flying supplies to a cat train that was shooting seismic lines for oil exploration on Banks Island in the high Arctic.

Johnson Point, an oil exploration base camp with a paved runway, was the main airport for supplying the western Arctic. In these very high latitudes winter means total darkness for months and navigating in that very hostile environment is difficult at the best of times. We had just gotten our first twin otter equipped with a new navigation aid called Global Navigation System. G.N.S. was based on very low power radio transmitters located in various parts of the world. In order for the computer to be able to navigate it had to acquire at least three G.N.S. transmitters.

Latitude and longitude had to be entered, for both our departure and destination points, in the computer. This entry was done with little wheels to select the numbers and other information for each trip. A further limiting factor with G.N.S. was that we had to have accurate positions or the computer to navigate to wherever we set it. Cat trains are always on the move, consequently requiring a navigator with each train to take celestial shots whenever he could to accurately keep track of their new location.

Once the G.N.S. stations were acquired and the trip was set up it was so accurate we could fly several hundred miles and then return to our parking ramp at the airport without a hitch. To us G.N.S. was like having died and gone to heaven. Being able to navigate so accurately in the high Arctic, where the magnetic compass always points strait down, was a "god send". This particular trip to the seismic train was uneventful with no cloud cover at all just the stars from horizon to horizon. After the last week of flying all our trips from takeoff to landing on solid instruments while relying on two radar altimeters one in front of each pilot for our landing decision height this one had been easy. The only visibility restriction we had was the complete loss of forward visibility in the snow which blew up when we went into reverse to stop on the short runway, which had been ploughed for us, on the ice.

Sometimes these strips were not much over 1000 feet long due to the location of the cat train at that time therefore, reverse was a necessity to stop before we ran off the landing strip. With clear weather and no rush to get back to Johnson Point we went to the cookhouse, had a leisurely meal, listened to the tape recorder playing music such as North to Alaska, which we of course changed to South to Alaska. Finally, off to the airplane we went where we decided to hell with waiting to reset the G.N.S. Instead, with such a clear night, we would fly back to home base using the astro compass. After lighting up the two P.T.6's we taxied back to the runway and lined up with the flare pots. We got the almanac out and shot Arcturus. It is one of the easiest stars to identify and shoot due to its position and brightness in the sky. Arcturus is the first bright star out from the handle of the Big Dipper. We read our heading on the astro compass, set our direction indicators (gyros) and off we went for Johnston Point. Once leveled off in cruise there was nothing but the sound of the engines and the big canopy of stars that ended in a faint white blur which was the endless Arctic snow just barley visible below us in the faint starlight.

Sitting in the warm cockpit with only the sound of those dependable turbine engines and no sense of movement through the dark night I slowly became aware that something was wrong but could not quite figure out what it was. I remember asking the co-pilot to see if Johnson Point was showing up on the A.D.F. After a few minutes he had no luck, now I came wide awake and said, "This doesn't look right. Let's get another shot on Arcturus.". Once more I gave him the time and he read the almanac to set the astro compass. Again there was no change in our D.I. settings. All of a sudden a possibility came to me and I asked him what time he had. When he read his watch we both knew we were really in trouble as there was almost three hours difference between our watches. I will never forget the feeling of real fear when I realized that we had departed the cat train with a D.I. setting that was almost forty-five degrees in error.

The sudden realization of just how serious our position was made it very difficult to convert the position of the stars versus what I figured they should look like. Now there was no doubt, in my mind, we were far off our track for Johnston Point, so far in fact I knew we might never be found.

Time was now critical. We had to decide which watch was right. Making a quick position guess based on nothing but the time we had flown on this heading and instinct we turned ninety degrees to the right starting a slow cruise climb for better fuel burn. All we could do now was wait and hope.

In this part of the high Arctic, at night, there is absolutely nothing but endless white, to try to recognize any feature below you is hopeless. Now both of us were really worried, questions and doubts started. Whose watch was set wrong? Had we turned the right way? Why had we not noted the runway heading after landing? Why had we not written the heading down so as to be able to confirm our star shot? Why did we not check both of our watches, especially in that the clock in the airplane did not work which in these temperatures was normal? Radio reception was so poor we could not raise anyone on H.F. or V.H.F. then all of a sudden the A.D.F. came alive and there was the Johnston Point N.D.B. strait ahead. Soon we could see the lights of our destination on the horizon. For some time I had been quite concerned about our fuel state. Seeing the lights in the distance was just to good to be true. However, to be on the safe side we stayed at eleven thousand until we could definitely make the airport as distances can be so deceiving at night in the high Arctic.

Descending through one thousand feet the low fuel light came on telling us we had eleven minutes of fuel left in the front tank. I really don't remember how much fuel remained in the rear tank. Of course, how much fuel there was in the rear tank is now a mute point. It really doesn't matter, because like in Earnest Gann's great book "Fate is the Hunter", that night so many years ago the hunter did not find my young co-pilot, whose name I cannot even recall, and me. Had we turned left instead of right we would have been so far off course it is possible no one would have ever found the airplane or us in those millions of square miles of ice and snow. After landing and going into the Atco Huts, that were our accommodations, we finally found out it was my watch that was wrong. To this day I do not really know why I chose to make the decision it was my watch, even stranger the damn thing worked just fine after this what should have been an uneventful trip.

That just leaves fate as the best explanation for my decision to turn right that night. Isn't it strange how words like Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate can have such chilling meaning when flying airplane

just curious · Post by **just curious** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 6:59 am

Sadly, Cat, we are going into Johnson Point today, to pull out the last of the cat train. On the bright side, I'll make sure mt co-pilot has a fresh battery in his watch.
JC

Tango01 · Post by **Tango01** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 11:40 am

I love those handheld units, but I think that if a VFR pilot was to use it, he/she should practice map reading often. After my private, I got one of those and relied (and still do) too much on them. My map reading skills are not what they used to be, so I am gonna start flying without it (carry it just in case)

kingeddie · Post by **kingeddie** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 1:40 pm

Yesterday I had to overshoot in YAG as I noticed an airplane on final for the same runway as me only from the opposite direction . I overshot turned hard right and tried calling him on every frequency I could think of .. He landed taxied in in his N registerd amphib . I strolled over and asked if He had a FU#%^#^$%^IN radio to which he replied OH YEAH its a Garmin 530 Its a GPS and a Radio . Which is where he got his frequencies from which were wrong in the data base .. listed as 122.9 not as 122.8 .Then he proceeds to tell me that he flew right over the International falls airport just south of the border and couldn't figure out why the airplanes in the circuit wouldn't answer him .. I said listen pal the freq's are on the Map ... He replied REALLY .. Then I said and in the CFS Whats a CFS he says . Sure enough I checked the 530 in my machine and the freq's were wrong . This guy was totally relying on the GPS for all his information not just navigation

Any way

Has anyone seen my bong

Eddie

Hedley · Post by **Hedley** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 6:48 am

That's impossible ... a G530 isn't a dirty handheld VFR GPS, it's a Transport Canada IFR-certified panel-mount GPS, and as such has no errors in it's database. Or so I am told here.

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:38 am

it's a Transport Canada IFR-certified panel-mount GPS, and as such has no errors in it's database. Or so I am told here.

Maybe the satellites had gotten way out of whack and he forgot to check the RAIM and all the frequencies got skewed in the data base?

pika · Post by **pika** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 11:35 am

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=283

... · Post by **...** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 12:21 pm

Okay folks. The following are the facts of this "occurrence".

I know a guy, who knows a guy, that knows this guy. Here is the email sent to me by the guy who knows a guy that knows THIS guy regarding the thing with the thing.

Anyway, a number of folks in that AVcanada thread seem to be making the assumption that this guy got lost on a gin clear day. That actually wasn't the case.

What makes this quite a bit worse is that everything east of Thunder Bay was hard IFR -- overcast ceilings ranging from 300 to 1000 feet -- and had been all day.

When Toronto first got the call from London FIC that the guy was in trouble, Gore Bay was reporting OVC005. It's unlikely you'd even make it in IFR in those conditions, as there's only an NDB approach. I was told that anything around the vicinity that might be VFR turned up nil. Sault, Wawa, Chapleau, Marathon, Elliot Lake, etc. etc. all socked in. He ended up going to Wawa because London thought the weather there might be "starting to break" (around the time he landed, it changed to something like BKN015) and because he didn't have enough fuel to make it back to Thunder Bay.

So he ended up "VFR" above a solid deck at 10,000 feet, the GPS failed, and he was hooped (though he would have been in trouble anyway, obviously, since the GPS wasn't going to get rid of that overcast. The big question is why did he depart in the first place knowing everything east of YQT was socked in?). He was asked to come up on the Toronto ACC frequency 124.075 and was unable to do so because his comm radio was so old that it couldn't do the 25 kHz spacing -- so he stayed with London and they called back and forth with Toronto every couple of minutes to update his position and give heading advisories. It was very tricky because he was in and out of radar coverage and couldn't seem to hold a consistent heading. He had a functioning nav radio but had no idea how to use it -- they tried to teach him how so he could dial in the Wawa VOR and just go direct that way, but weren't able to do so.

After about an hour and a half of circling the area he saw the town of Wawa and managed somehow to get under the deck and find the airport. I'm not sure what would have happened if that break in the cloud hadn't come along. With this pilot's limited skill there's no way they could have done an emergency surveillance approach or anything like that, he'd have piled it in for sure. And since the ceilings were so low there wouldn't even have been an opportunity to do an emergency cloud break. There was really nothing else that could have been done, and the guy got extremely lucky.

END OF STORY.

GilletteNorth · Post by **GilletteNorth** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 1:46 am

I was taught to use any available means to navigate accurately, including tracking to/from VOR's or NDB's, lines drawn on the map with headings and times or IFR (I follow roads/railways) if needed. Relying solely on a GPS to take care of all navigating duties doesn't seem advisable.

Mitch Cronin · Post by **Mitch Cronin** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 4:11 am

"He had a functioning nav radio but had no idea how to use it "

... so who let him loose with an airplane when he didn't know that very basic bit of need-to-know airplane stuff??? Wow! Is that where training has gone nowadays? People can learn to fly and use a GPS, so they naver have to learn to actually navigate, and a bloody VOR is just an alien device to them?

Shiny Side Up · Post by **Shiny Side Up** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 10:09 am

You see the really silly part of this is that in the future as incidents like this one occur in an increasing frequency, our regulators in TC will decide that since pilots cannot be trusted to have learned to navigate by themselves without a GPS, we'll have PPLs with an extra 5 hours of training time tacked into them of "GPS emergency procedures", possibly GPS required nav trips, maybe even require that training aircraft have back up GPS....

And so on, and so on, increasing the costs of training and time involved. Which then will of course prompt complaining posts from some of our notable vintage posters here.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it still required for the PIC to be familiar with all pertinent information regarding a flight and have on board all pertinent charts and documents relating to the planned flight? Not having them is a direct violation of the CARs. Not bothering to familiarize yourself with information required for the flight, could be considered not flying with all due care and attention.

Personally I'd love to see a few of these idiots hung for their apathy and ignorance when it comes to their flying habits, some hefty fines might be nice, but I'm inclined to start putting heads on pikes near runways for repeat offenders.