Having learned to fly when visual omniranges still were scarce, I was taught to navigate my Cessna 140 cross country by the age-old technique of laying a course on a chart, factoring in magnetic variation, compass deviation and winds aloft, then estimating the time it would take to make the flight to the selected destination.
Of course, I did not fly very high: My progress was monitored by comparing landmarks on the ground with those shown on my well-fingered chart, and it was a confidence builder when I arrived as planned. Before I was allowed to turn a radio on, I learned the fundamental technique of dead reckoning. It was fun to fly that way.
As tempus fugited, my wife and I moved into a series of well-equipped lightplanes, all with omnirange .navigation radios that made cross-country flying so simple we could fly for hundreds of miles without having to look down., except to enjoy the scenery unreeling below. Following the electronic trails, we made frequent forays to Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas and crossed the United States several times. What really impressed our nonflying friends were our trips to the Bahamas; because we flew over all that ocean, we were regarded as heroes, as if we were second cousins to Charles A. Lindbergh. I never told our naive admirers that the over-water jump from Palm Beach, Florida, to Grand Bahama Island took only 20 minutes, or that Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Nassau was a mere hour's flight.
From our storytelling of adventures whilst hithering and yonning, Marianne and I influenced several of our friends to follow in our air trails. One of them, a man of means, was bitten by the flying bug so hard that in six months from a standing start, he went through the multi-engine rating, then bought an Aerostar as his first airplane. The night he purchased it, he suggested over martinis in the spacious game room of his mansion that he and I and our wives should fly to Cozumel for a week or so of scuba diving, followed by a grand tour of Mexico: Oaxaco, Acapulco, Mexico City, Mazanillo, Puerto Vallarta. The plan was that I act as navigator and, if necessary, instrument pilot, since he was not yet instrument rated. He still regarded me as an expert over-water navigator, but I didn't know that at the time. I had figured on flying over land, around the curve of the Gulf of Mexico. He was thinking of going from Key West, Florida, direct. He had all the charts.
The Aerostar was fast and long-legged; Washington, D.C., to Key West was made in the time it took our ancient Apache to fly to Jacksonville, Florida. As mine host was supervising the luggage transfer for the overnight in the motel and having the 'Star fueled and put to bed, I took the charts to the flight service station and began to plan the flight for the morrow. The fellows at the FSS showed the acceptable routing through Cuban airspace: Green One Airway to Inca Intersection, Blue Airway Four to Cozumel; this would dogleg around the northwest side of Cuba and avoid any potential contretemps with resident Migs.
From my early experiences, before VORs defined the Victor airways structure, I recalled that airways named by colors were defined by low-frequency navigation aids. In this case there was a VOR on Key West, plus a non-directional low-frequency homing beacon and another such homer on Cozumel, but nothing in between, so that in real life the airways so neatly drawn on the chart were sheer fiction. We could start off in the right direction with the help of the Key West VOR, but 30 miles out we would be dead reckoning, for sure. Down the trail 85 statute miles (85 nautical, as shown on the chart) was Inca, at which point a 25 degree left turn would put us on the Blue Airway, ha-ha. There was no way of identifying it electronically; it would be by guess and by God, with us all the time in Cuban airspace hoping to remain clear of that island that was strictly off limits. Anyhow, as required, I filed an instrument flight plan for that fanciful routing and rejoined the group.
Taking off the next morning, we were issued the instrument clearance and punched through an overcast to our assigned altitude of 10,000 feet. On top in bright sunshine, we headed southwest at 242 degrees. We lost the Key West omni signal 25 miles out.
My friend in the left seat pursed his lips thoughtfully; he had never flown without at least one of his omni receivers perking.: The only low-frequency beacon the ADF would pick up was Bimini, in the Bahamas, more. than 150 miles behind us.
We were skittering along above the seemingly endless cloud deck, like a gnat flying across the head of an enormous beer, without the slightest idea of which way the winds aloft were blowing or how strongly. When the transponder began to blink, indicating that we were being scanned by Cuban radar, we could only hope that we were well clear of the coastline. I was aware of heavy breathing to my left, and that the pilot was beginning to perspire.
I checked the by-then worthless chart, fiddled with the. circular computer and consulted my wrist watch, improvisations that kept my friend one notch short of panic. He did not realize that I had no more idea of our position than he did. After a while he rasped, "Where are we and when do we turn?" Sweat was running down his forehead and the back of his neck in rivulets, and his jaws were real tight.
Exuding confidence, I reconsulted my navigation material then said, "According to my calculations, we turn in two minutes 23 seconds." I was making it, all up, but it sounded good enough to reassure him, although the knuckles on the control-wheel hand stayed white.
When the hands on my watch swung around, I announced pontifically, "Twenty seconds until turning. New heading will be 126 degrees. Counting down: Ten-Nine-Eight-Seven-Six-Five-Four-Three-Two-Turn." Rockets have been launched to the moon with less drama.
The Aerostar wheeled around to the new heading; the skipper was concentrating so hard on maintaining a precise compass course for the next hour that he did note notice my donning headphones and beginning to fish around on the ADF for a homing signal from Cozumel, or Merida, or Tuxpan—or anywhere in Mexico. Nothing.
For an hour and a half we were like Miss Piggy, lost in space with the blue sky above and the white blanket below. My friend obviously was perturbed, never having been out of touch with the world before; I was not really worried—we had enough fuel to fly to Mexico City, and I knew that we would reach land somewhere along the coast—but I had a reputation to protect, and it was becoming a bit frayed around the edges.
Then my fishing expedition paid off. The call letters CZM burst upon my eardrums. The ADF needle twitched a couple of times, then snapped to attention; Cozumel was dead ahead. I told the captain to begin letting down. The clouds broke 10 minutes later, and there was the little island with a big white "X" of concrete runways inviting us in. When my pilot grinned; I knew my reputation was intact, even though it was preserved by sheer luck.
The rest of the tour was a piece of cake, and when we got home, our host for years praised my expertise in over-water navigation to one and all, making me out as a hero. I was the cynosure of all eyes.
Up until now, I never have set the record straight. Under all the circumstances, would you have?
Frank Kingston Smith, AOPA 124393, is a multi-engine instrument pilot, reformed lawyer and the original Week-end Pilot.
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