Dumb Question- Windscreen

[bagarre]

It bothers me that so many "modern" pilots do not possess the stick/rudder/navigational skills of past generations because of automation dependency.

The same thing was said when they started to install VORs.

Old timers always think that the youngsters should have it as hard as they did. That probably comes from having to walk to school in the snow up hill both ways.

[Ryan Smith]

You miss my point...or I miss yours.
My point was that my compass is heavily influenced by land/taxi lights when they are on.... and thought others might wish to be reminded of that phenomenom.

(And a compass is relevant/useful regardless of time of day, IMO.)

It bothers me that so many "modern" pilots do not possess the stick/rudder/navigational skills of past generations because of automation dependency.

One of the fossils out at W88 and I were talking shop (mainly, I was listening), and we got on the topic of the recent restoration of his 1937 A-model Taylorcraft. Among the trials and tribulations of the aircraft's rebuild, he remarked that after he sold the airplane in the 1960s, someone hacked up the original instrument panel. Because of this, he scoured the US for a serviceable instrument panel that wasn't hacked to bits for a bunch of extra instruments, and finally found one that was from a later model airplane, but still represented a correct configuration for his airplane. He said when he bought the airplane back, it had two compasses...one in the panel (incorrect) and one on top of the panel (not factory standard). Before the restoration, he discarded the one in the panel, and during the restoration he left the one on top of the panel, even though the airplane didn't have a compass from the factory. That was the least invasive place to mount one.

He was telling me that it hadn't been long after he started flying that compasses were made standard equipment on airplanes, and he went on to detail some of the navigational errors that followed. Before, pilots were used to dead reckoning and using landmarks. When they got compasses, many of them didn't fully understand how they worked, magnetic deviation, wind drift, etc. and there were lots of pilots that had to put down because of fuel exhaustion because they were many, many miles off course. They simply flew a heading.

So in many ways, the children of the magenta line aren't that far removed from the old, old timers. I rather like using the GPS myself...but to feed into a CDI. I don't like flying screens, and I don't much care for the CDI sensitivity when flying TO a station. I always try to fly FROM stations. My first solo cross country didn't see me using the compass except to set my initial heading each way. All navigation was pilotage and I had very close checkpoints. I was probably 18 at the time, and surprisingly, I hated the GPS in the 170 (KLX135A) and the only reason I even turned the unit on was because it was a GPS/comm and I was using flight following.

[GAHorn]

I don't think youngsters should have it "hard".

I think they should know the basics of navigation and pilotage before they learn the moving map and become addicted/enslaved to it.

[ghostflyer]

well the army taught me celestial navigation and I still have to use it. There are parts of Australia have black spots where GPS doesn't exists. For me its using ALL methods of navigation at the same time checking each other out. There is "Murphy,s Law". once when flying out Western Queensland by myself I was tracking to a large town out there for fuel etc. I was at about 8500ft when a bright idea came to me to divert to fly over a property to have look that the family use to own some years previously. I followed a track on the ground thinking it lead to the property. with in 3 mins no GPS. No ADF has the only radio station out there had repeater stations all operating on the same frequency. No VOR. Next thing I had bumped the window latch on the window [Cessna 172} and the window is now full open . The rush of air then vacumned all my maps out of the window. The Maps were sitting on the combing panel. Pulled the throttle back to slow the aircraft so the window could be closed. OK , fuel is enough for 1.5 hours including reserve. All the dry rivers run basically north south. The sand hills run about about 280 degs. the sun was high but very bright to the east and didn't allow the features on the horizon to become clear. so with the magnetic compass as my only means of navigation and the sun at about 45 degs to the horizontal and it was 10.30 am . the aircraft was throttles back to conserve fuel and a slow turn to about 45 degs to the north was made. I knew I had about 80 miles to run to the major town before the fowl up. Still no GPS signal. So I ran for about 1/2 hour looking into the sun when a flask of light of a shinny roof indicated where the large town was . The airport started to appear and then the GPS signal appeared. the whole ordeal was taken over a hour from loosing the GPS and the maps to be "slightly " lost. I knew where I was but couldn't prove it. No VHF out there .

[daedaluscan]

I think you missed mine - I was joking

[hilltop170]

We're really way off topic but I'd think it'd be scary if they still required Sextants.
Let's look at exactly how much of the WORLD relies on GPS. Not just the military but the whole world.
It's pretty staggering. It's everywhere. Why? Because it's rock solid and has enormous redundancy built in.
So if GPS was ever truly shut down, the whole world would come to a grinding halt.


Compass === useless.

That may be true while the GPS is working but I'm keeping my compass just in case. I may even buy a sextant!

[GAHorn]

Anyone wanting to throw their old sextants away should know that I re-cycle them and should do the right thing.

[daedaluscan]

Since we are way off topic: I have a sextant given to me by a friend who was a Spitfire pilot in the second war, then a test pilot for the RAF into the late 50s. What I like about it so much is that when he gave it to me he was in his late 80s, yet made me promise that if he was to ever buy another offshore yacht I would loan it back to him. Great character, sadly gone now. Wish I could take him flying.

[DaveF]

That may be true while the GPS is working but I'm keeping my compass just in case. I may even buy a sextant!

Here you go, only $19.99!

[GAHorn]

The description of that sextant says...."... this model has taken sailors around the world, too! It is full-sized and has sunshades, but no optical magnification to help you find dim celestial bodies."

Hmmmmn.... dim... sextant...with a celestial body... who took sailors around the world.... Reminds me of a blonde cocktail waitress in a harbor-town bar I once knew...

[hilltop170]

For as much good as either one of those would do me, I'll take the shiny brass one!

[bagarre]

For as much good as either one of those would do me, I'll take the shiny brass one!

Now if only I could put my whiskey compass on the fireplace mantle next to the pretty sextant.

[Ryan Smith]

For as much good as either one of those would do me, I'll take the shiny brass one!

Now if only I could put my whiskey compass on the fireplace mantle next to the pretty sextant.

Well, given that your compass is in a pretty invisible spot in your new panel, you could bootleg it and just take it out anyway.

[hilltop170]

For as much good as either one of those would do me, I'll take the shiny brass one!

Now if only I could put my whiskey compass on the fireplace mantle next to the pretty sextant.

For a measley $10,000, you could get an Aspen PFD with ADAHARS and remove that worthless old whiskey compass forever.

[Karl Towle]

Reverting to the original thread from so many moons ago, the idea of drilling holes in the middle of a strapless windshield leaves me cold, and certainly increases the chances of leaving something on the glare-shield wet.

As for mounting a "whiskey compass," here is an idea that has been working very well for a thousand hours.

Start by removing the trim strip, and install a #10 riv-nut in place of the center push-pin fastener. This can be done without drilling or modifying the forward carry-through in any way. The SRS mag compass, with its beveled drum works perfectly, and is very easy to read from below. There is space between the carry-through, and the trim strip, so install a #10 stud and nut to keep it from turning and fill the void (use brass). Fabricate an aluminum bracket for the compass, and attach using a locking nut with a plastic cap in the middle (just like the ones that held the center strap in place).

The picture was taken before the windshield was replaced with a strapless one, the bracket was painted and the appropriate compass correction card installed. The SRS compass is very light weight, so vibration fatigue hasn't been a problem. A metal case compass with its greater mass would likely be problematic.

For those who can still use maps and pilotage, a GPS outage would be an inconvenience, but NOT a paralyzing event. Nobody I care about is allowed to turn on a GPS until they can navigate with a map. BTW - anybody want to purchase a lightly used Foster LORAN?