I was going through “from the ground up”

I recommend it to someone here and decided to dust off my copy for the sake of it


Was looking at the nav bit about drift lines, took me back to my training days, but I thought I haven’t heard much about this from low time guys I know, I asked a massive sample size of 3 students (I know lol) and none of them knew remotely what I was talking about

Thought I’d ask here, I’m I speaking Greek, or is this something y’all did?

Yes, I was taught just that. I was also taught, however, and do myself teach using pilotage to make the correction very close to the start point by directing my butt to the first near checkpoint. Back when wet compass was the only indication of magnetic heading and was unstable in rough air, we also just flew the true course drawn on the sectional. This was with no concern for magnetic heading and was simply maneuver as necessary early to overfly very near check points. Once we had the corrective gap between where the nose was pointing a bit upwind and where our butt was going (true course), we simply duplicated the angle with the N-S section line each section and then duplicated the angle at the next N-S section line. And we duplicated the correction angle with the E-W section line. This holding the same physical, against mother earth, wind correction angle along with pilotage kept us on the true course. Except when true 045, 135, 225, or 315 course, N-S section lines will be crossed at a different angle than E-W section lines. We just have to direct our butt continually to a distant target, next distant target, etc. all the while checking to see the appropriate correction angle across section lines.

It helps in the planning and map recon to see how the drawn true course crosses N-S and E-W section lines as a no wind starting point. When we have the current winds or forcast, we can pre-think the wind correction angle and imagine the angle of that look as our butt crosses section lines.

Even in the more electronic age, math was not my thing and messing with wis-wheel could really get me lost. I preferred to file IFR if in an instrument equipped aircraft or just build straight fence checkpoint to checkpoint. Dead reckoning for me was putting more than enough fuel in to get to the destination or near course fuel point. Since IFR is mostly office work in airplanes (two pilots or autopilot in helicopter), there is time for math, wis-wheel and planning.

Drift lines are still taught in initial training - PPL, CPL. Along with all the other ancient stuff that becomes irrelevant in today's technology. It is probably of more value as an awareness tool giving pilots some perspective on how atmospherics need to be compensated for by more than just true track converted to magnetic.

Flying helicopter offshore a couple hundred miles we'd fly a compass heading assuming zero wind and then at our ETA turn into known wind (reading it off the water) and start scanning for the rig. By then you could usually pick up the rig NDB, providing it was working.

These days for practically free you can fly true track and know your groundspeed which constantly updates your ETA. Absolutely no reason to look at a compass, calculate drift lines, wiz wheel anything. But I have seen pilots reluctant to fly offshore because the FMS wouldn't initialize, and then had to be coaxed into the "old way" of an accurate compass heading to find the rig.

Karmutzen wrote:Drift lines are still taught in initial training - PPL, CPL. Along with all the other ancient stuff that becomes irrelevant in today's technology. It is probably of more value as an awareness tool giving pilots some perspective on how atmospherics need to be compensated for by more than just true track converted to magnetic.

Flying helicopter offshore a couple hundred miles we'd fly a compass heading assuming zero wind and then at our ETA turn into known wind (reading it off the water) and start scanning for the rig. By then you could usually pick up the rig NDB, providing it was working.

These days for practically free you can fly true track and know your groundspeed which constantly updates your ETA. Absolutely no reason to look at a compass, calculate drift lines, wiz wheel anything. But I have seen pilots reluctant to fly offshore because the FMS wouldn't initialize, and then had to be coaxed into the "old way" of an accurate compass heading to find the rig.

As someone who loves tech, it fucks up….and it fucks up at the worst possible time

I also am a large believer in Mr Murphy, and the one thing you least are prepared for will be the thing that happens

I don’t do drift lines for all the flights I do, just in the last week I flew some 4,698.9nm (according to my logbook at least) no drift lines or timing visual waypoints or DR, that being said it’s a required skill, and flying lower and slower stuff in BFE the old school pilotage stuff can and has come in handy, plus GPS outages and testing happen

https://sapt.faa.gov/outages.php?outage ... lution=0.5



It’s like manually doing math 9.9/10 you can whip out your phone or a calculator and do it, but you wouldn’t be adulting very well if you couldn’t, and we all hear the stories of clerks who can’t make proper change without their register working

I will still fly by a chart on some of my cross county flights to keep from forgetting how to. I find it interesting looking for way points and solo cross countries seem to go quicker flying by chart. I have had a charging failure and a gps malfunction on a couple flights both in unfamiliar areas so like to keep up to date on the old way. It’s also a seems to calm a nervous passenger if they are looking for waypoints that are marked on the map.

Excellent point of view, out the window, David K.