GPS receivers have come down in price to the point where, even though it may violate purists' sensibilities, there's really very little reason to fly without one, so there's almost no possibility of getting lost. Or is there?
The bad news is that many people believe so strongly in the power of the almighty GPS that they'll fly with little planning and total faith in an instrument that, in many cases, relies on batteries and was built by the lowest bidder. Plus, there are some places and times when a GPS simply doesn't work.
Getting lost can happen for a number of reasons. They are in descending order of priority:
Tips to Not Get LostThe easiest way to deal with getting lost is to avoid getting lost in the first place.
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Inadequate planning. It's never a good idea to jump in the airplane for even a short cross-country without at least a sectional that displays your course line and basic navigational information.
Equipment failure combined with inadequate planning. If you're relying solely on your GPS or VOR for every bit of navigational information, things will go downhill quickly if they quit.
Lowering ceilings combined with inadequate planning. You've been flying along, the weather forces you to lower altitudes, and you discover that the VORs don't work when you're that low, you have no GPS, and you haven't been flying an established compass heading. Not good.
Winds not as forecast or not checking the winds aloft. If it's a cross-country of more than 100 miles and the winds are both significant and unknown, you can find yourself miles off course--especially if you haven't been performing pilotage/dead reckoning. Keeping a casual thumb on the chart and watching the terrain means that you'll discover the wind effect because checkpoints aren't where they're supposed to be, which will allow you to correct your compass heading accordingly.
Not flying the plan. You look out the window, things don't look "right," and your anxiety talks you into making a major course deviation in the hopes of finding something that you can identify. The plan was there for a reason and, if you've flown it to this point but decide to do something drastic, all of that forethought just went out the window. You're entering unknown territory.
Did we mention inadequate planning? Unusual things can happen that can throw you off course, but if your planning is adequate, you've concocted a contingency plan and decision minimums for bad weather. So, you'll at least have a basic strategy.
What would that plan look like? Well, it begins with a big admission: OK, you're lost. Now what'll you do? There are lots of ways to handle the situation. Here are some favorites.
First, recognize that "lost" doesn't happen instantly. It's a situation that creeps up and usually takes from a few minutes to a half-hour to happen. "Lost" generally starts as an uncomfortable sense that we don't know exactly where we are. When that "where am I feeling" first sets in, it's nearly impossible to be very far off course, so we don't want to compound matters by doing something drastic.
In the first minutes of knowing you're lost, you are generally only a few miles right or left of your desired course--you just don't know which. The longer you ignore it, however, the deeper you get into unknown territory.
Even if you've been paying absolutely no attention to where you are when the GPS quits, you still know where you are in a general sense. You know you're within a given chunk of airspace. As you fly along, however, that changes. If you've been flying a given compass heading, when the GPS quits, you aren't automatically lost, even if you don't have a sectional on board (don't make that mistake). Hold that heading and you'll stay on course until something shows up that makes sense.
Incidentally, there's a tendency for the building anxiety to trick you into "force identifying" ground features: You're desperate to find your position so you mentally make a town or crossroad that you're flying over fit something on the sectional--even though it's not quite right. This is also where having up-to-date sectionals can be critical. Towns change shape so often and new features (race tracks, highways, even airports) pop up so rapidly that they can confuse you.
It's at this point in the adventure--when we decide that we really don't know where we are--that the weather, local geography, time of day, and fuel quantity come into play. Being lost on a clear morning in Nebraska with full tanks is a lot easier to deal with than a three-miles-in-light-drizzle day west of Denver, late in the afternoon with one-quarter-full tanks. Visibility is everything, and there is no substitute for lots of fuel. The local population density can also play a role; towns give positions, and many have airports.
Low visibility can make a bad situation much worse. A cardinal rule in low-visibility conditions (actually in all conditions) is to mentally keep track of every single airport you pass so you know how to find them again. A "nearest airport" button--offered by many GPS navigators--is invaluable, but you won't always have one handy and should plan accordingly. Another cardinal rule is that as soon as you sense you are beginning to lose positional awareness, visually mark your exact position over the ground, do a one-eighty, and return to territory where you had better references and knew your location--the last big town you saw or the mountain ridge that's still barely visible behind you. The longer you wait, the deeper you'll get into a situation where a one-eighty may not help. Better yet, get in the habit of fixing your position by taking VOR cross bearings as you fly. Tune in a nearby VOR, rotate the OBS until it's centered with a "From" indication, then draw a line on your sectional to correspond with the radial you're on. Then do the same with another nearby VOR. Where the two lines intersect, that's your position.
The second you realize you aren't exactly sure of your position, find references on the ground to mark your position at that moment. A last-known position establishes a datum from which to measure. Without it, you're just wandering around with no root to return to. So, as soon as you know for a fact that you're lost, look out the window and find a couple of very identifiable geographical features to which you can return from several miles away--lakes, roads, etc. You may not be able to find that point on the sectional, but at least you can find it from a distance so you can easily return to it.
It's almost certain that in a discussion of "lost procedures," your flight instructor mentioned "the four Cs": Climb, communicate (to air traffic control, using the emergency frequency of 121.5 MHz if you've lost all sense of nearby facilities), confess (your situation), and comply (with the controller's instructions). I'd like to add another "C" to the beginning of that list: Circle.
If visibility and/or ceilings are good, circle the position you've marked on the ground and climb as high as you're comfortable. Altitude greatly increases not only the area you can see but also makes it much easier to gain perspective on identifiable features. Also, if you have working VORs, you're more likely to pick one up at altitude than down low. Voice communication also benefits, and if you ask air traffic control to help you, your aircraft will be easier to identify on radar.
If you've delayed retreating into known territory and you're really lost--or clouds prevent you from climbing--the most important thing you can do is keep your head. Don't let panic or anxiety get the upper hand because that greatly dulls your ability to think. Begin by flying a fairly small circle around the point you marked on the ground. If the visibility is good, you can actually make the circle pretty big. Keep that point in sight at all times. The purpose of the circle is not to search for recognizable checkpoints; that's just a byproduct. It's to give you time to think and collect your wits without getting more lost. In the process, you're checking what you see on the ground against your sectional looking for anything that's absolutely identifiable. This might also be a prudent time to reduce power to an economy setting, just in case.
While circling your point study the surrounding area looking for roads, prominent ridges, railroad tracks, power lines, anything that leads away from the point and can be easily identified and followed out and back--like spokes in a wheel. A crossroads is the perfect point. Then, once you gain a familiarity with the territory around your point, start a systematic investigation of the local area by flying five minutes out on each spoke, returning to the known point each time.
While flying the spokes, don't be tempted to hang a right on the first big road you see, or divert over to investigate what appears to be a town on the horizon. If something looks promising, mentally catalog it and return to your central point to fly the rest of your spokes. We have a plan, so fly it.
If you're flying a middle-of-the-road GA airplane, you're probably cruising at around 120 knots, so each spoke will be approximately 10 miles long, letting you cover a piece of ground that is 20 miles across. That's a lot of territory and, if you start the process the instant you think you're lost, chances are almost 100 percent you'll cross your intended course in the process.
During the search, watch your drift across the ground and try to identify the winds, as that will give you an idea whether you are left or right of course.
If you find nothing useful, widen your search with longer legs or change position and fly additional "wheel spokes" from a new location. If you decide to change position, go backward, not forward. Forward takes you farther off course; backward on a reciprocal heading corrected for wind drift (it'll be from the other side) brings you closer to the intended course. Go back 10 minutes and establish another five-minute spoked wheel.
Look for major roads, big rivers, and railroad tracks. Towns capable of having an airport have at least one, and generally two, of the three. If visibility is low and you encounter a good-sized town, fly around it, keeping about two miles from its edge--if there's an airport, chances are you'll fly right over it.
The important things, when lost, are to keep your head, have a plan, and don't make rash decisions. Think everything through. There are only a few parts of the country where you aren't within a 10- to 15-minute flight of an airport somewhere. The longer you're lost, the more important it is that you get on the ground, get your head together, and update your flight planning. If you do get lost, develop a plan, fly it, and everything will work out.
Budd Davisson is an aviation writer/photographer and magazine editor who has written approximately 2,200 articles and has flown more than 300 different types of aircraft. A CFI since 1967, he teaches about 30 hours a month in his Pitts S-2A Special. Visit his Web site.
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