Waypoints: Alone, in the dark

As I cracked the hangar door open, spilling light across the dark ramp, I reflected on the brief flight from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and how little it resembled another night IMC flight from there to Frederick 27 years earlier—just five weeks after I had earned my instrument rating in a brand-new Piper Warrior.

The well-equipped 1988 PA–28 included a Bendix/King KNS 80 area navigation system and an automatic direction finder. With all the recent training, I could chase the swinging needles as well as anyone. The flight from Lancaster was my first solo night instrument flight, ending with an uneventful ILS to Frederick’s Runway 23; Runway 30 didn’t even exist in those days.

The months of training paid off. The localizer needle swung to the center as I flew the transition off of the Westminster VOR. I set power and popped in approach flaps, sliding down the glideslope. Soon the runway lights materialized out of the inky murk, just as I anticipated they would, as I followed the procedure printed on the paper approach plate on my lap—the folded low-altitude en route chart on the seat next to me.

The Bonanza I own today was already a teenager when the Warrior was produced. Yet today, the navigation information available to me on a tablet computer alone surpasses what the Warrior could muster when new. I flew instruments for more than a decade before experiencing a moving map of any real capability. In perusing my logbook of that era, I see multiple references to holding patterns in actual conditions, something I seldom see today. Setting up and flying a hold using the basic six instruments is a serious exercise in situational awareness.

I have no desire to return to the technology of the Reagan years, but I am glad I learned to fly in IMC on conventional instruments, as challenging as it was. I am fortunate to have multiple moving maps available to me today, including an iPad. Not everyone does, of course, and they’re still flying safely in instrument conditions. I like to believe that with the failure of the moving maps, I could still fall back on basic instrument skills and keep on going. I wonder how easily pilots who only learned on glass cockpits with multiple moving maps and GPS overlay approaches could revert to navigation by reference to moving needles.

To test my skills on a recent instrument proficiency flight, I flew a raw data VOR approach using the conventional course deviation indicator at the bottom of my stack. I did my best to ignore the information on the multifunction display and the digital distance readouts to the next fix that seemed omnipresent across the cockpit.

While it all worked out, it also reminded me about how difficult it is to set up realistic partial-panel exercises in a well-equipped airplane. With multiple independent navigation sources and moving maps, plus electronic backup attitude indicators with their own batteries, does it matter that you’ve never had to follow along with a paper chart, using crossing radials to determine your distance to a fix? Or that you’ve never had to make timed compass turns when the mechanical directional gyro decided to take a vacation. More likely it’s covered up with one of those soap-dish suction cup mats, a CFII sitting to your right thinking up the next macabre exercise to test your mettle.

Most pilots today learn to fly with access to wonderful situational awareness tools. Like mechanical instruments, modern displays occasionally fail. And as we did, pilots revert to some other backup and keep on going. If they couldn’t continue to fly successfully, we would not see a continuing decrease in the accident rate. Technology shouldn’t be a crutch. However, properly used and with appropriate backups, it can continue to improve the utility of GA airplanes while making flying safer and more relaxing.