This is kinda how I feel flying in Minnesota.

My angles across N-S, E-W, N-S, E-W, section lines true course Kansas flying doesn't work over large bodies of water. Navy pilots are the best navigators.

Zane,

Start looking at water bodies, lakes, rivers, streams, etc. Then highways and towns, based on what the water bodies suggest.

Navigation is an acquired skill, and needs to be re-acquired when you go to a different locale.

But, that is, of course, why God created GPS......

When I first started working on the Yukon Flats, I spent a HUGE amount of time with a chart on my knee, and comparing the land with the chart. After a while, it all started to make sense, and I could navigate without the chart. The problem there is that the (sometimes Huge) lakes often dry up during low water years or several years after a flood. So, you have to learn to look at a large meadow on the ground, and consider if that was a lake when the chart was created.....etc. Point is, look at the features, and try to envision what they MIGHT be.

Then, update your GPS database.

MTV

There's this guy that made fun of the part in the movie where Jimmy leans out the window of the plane and yells at the guys in the boat, "Which way to Ireland". This guy maintained that the guys on the boat wouldn't be able to hear him.

Then one day I was out in my yard working and heard a plane coming. When it got overhead I herd the pilot yell "Hi Tom". I looked up and it was a friend leaning out the door of his kitfox.

Hahaha.

You could always bring along a little battery pack so your IPad doesn't die. That's what I do for long trips.

Panel mounted USB ports in the King Air have me spoiled lol.

Battery pack or panel mounted power ports are the right solution...I bought the cheap adapters that go into the cigar lighter sockets....on a fight after about an hour the static got so bad on my radios I had to have an airliner relay a center call...checked my alternator,strobes...anything I thought could be putting out the static...I pulled the adapter out....and silence.....IFR or at night that could have been ugly....they do make night quality plug adapters...if you go this way...buy them

We started teaching our students sectional, compass, and clock only. Partly because there is a DPE that likes to see it, mostly because of the retarded magic map mistakes. Magic map use leads to mentally checking out, it is a self lobotomy.
Even when used somewhat responsibly pilots fly sloppy with magic maps. Don't get me started about ridiculous head down times with the stupid things, and no they are not faster to look at then paper maps, I sit and watch students use both.
Post it note taped to the panel with heading, ETA, frequencies, plus a little preflight studying of the route(something lacking by magic map users) and students rarely even need look at the sectional.
With a magic map on we all look at it too much even when there is no useful or new information being provided. I'm guilty of it and so is everyone else.
Try flying without it, you might actually prefer it.

GB wrote:We started teaching our students sectional, compass, and clock only.

Disguised as a funny post about this classic scene from the Jimmy Stewart movie is this very message ^^. Modern GPS moving map tech is awesome but I suspect a lot of pilots have lost their basic navigational situational awareness.— "Children of the Pink Line."

And in all honestly, my iPad never died. It was just a funny way to present Jimmy. And if you think my 496 isn't charged in my flight bag you'd be underestimating my love for the 496.

GPS is a magic box. Still requires some common sense to use though. Happens every winter where some poor soul ends up lost in the woods on a forest service road covered in snow because the GPS told them this is the "shortest route". I still carry my whiz wheel and a flight plan with magnetic headings just to stay sharp. I know, Old School, but I enjoy the challenge.

Zzz wrote:

GB wrote:We started teaching our students sectional, compass, and clock only.

Disguised as a funny post about this classic scene from the Jimmy Stewart movie is this very message ^^. Modern GPS moving map tech is awesome but I suspect a lot of pilots have lost their basic navigational situational awareness.— "Children of the Pink Line."

And in all honestly, my iPad never died. It was just a funny way to present Jimmy. And if you think my 496 isn't charged in my flight bag you'd be underestimating my love for the 496.

I laughed my ass off when I watched that clip having no idea he really did that. A couple of weeks ago while going through books (HUNDREDS of books...) in a house we inherited I stumbled across the book "WE" by Lindbergh. Started reading it a couple of days ago and got to the shouting at the fishing boat part last night. Hilarious, yet awe inspiring. If you haven't read it yet it's worth finding.

Pete