[Dave W]

Latest issue of the CAA's flight safety magazine.

Not a bad read.

[Chris Martyr]

Actually a very good read Dave .

And also seems to indicate that Rachel and her cohorts have a good feel for UK GA at all levels .

Perhaps our Rachel could invite 'Sunny' over for a chat and give her a few pointers about keeping in tune with wot proper GA pilots want to read about .

It's all about presentation . So , well done you CAA GA people ...

As for EASA's 'GA Team' ? That surely is what the Yanks call an oxymoron isn't it ...

[MachFlyer]

Latest issue of the CAA's flight safety magazine.

Not a bad read.

As a student I found this a really good read, I didn't even know it existed, is this a new I initiative or are there "back issues" I can have a look through?

[Irv Lee]

Back issues for a small number of years at about 4-ish per year , should be on airspacesafety.com somewhere

[MachFlyer]

Thanks Irv I'll take a look. Reading your article about GPS apps what is your take on students and the use of Skydemon (or other app) whilst training? Clearly on your skills test you have to demonstrate dead reckoning with diversions etc but would you advocate having a phone/tablet running when practicing solo nav exercises to verify position if you became unsure of your position etc?

[Irv Lee]

When traditional-gps came into being, the seniors insisted they were work of the devil, and we had to continue to teach their clearly unsuitable 1960s raf "nav techniques" designed for preselected for ability and mental arithmetic capability paid students who fly every day to non-selected paying students who fly maybe once a week or fortnight who might even have mentalmathsphobia.
We then teach them to get nav winds from a met office form produced half a day before that is only valid at one time of day and don't teach them how to check if today is a day where this data remains accurate for hours or a day when it is wrong an hour later.
Result: students couldn't understand why "1 in x" flights went wrong but "obviously" it must mean the student was bad at nav when in fact it was the system using 1960s military systems and processes without considering whether they were fit for purpose without modification for modern civilian use. They weren't fit without modification, but like the Emporer's new clothes, anyone pointing out the obvious was not welcome.
So the student passed the nav test on one of those days when the.metform was good enough, and immediately bought a GPS... and fell into a few elephant traps as it was self-teaching. No good going to an instructor, their seniors wouldn't let them use them, so they didn't know how to use them sensibly either.
Now... along comes GPS Apps... let's not make the same mistake... get students used to what we KNOW they will be using when they qualify. So just for example, on the generic level, teach them not to fly a direct magenta line route in class G between two "popular" points. In Skydemon just make a very minor dogleg choosing some feature just off the direct track.
It is threat and error management... Gps accurate to less than a wingspan plus levels for flight not enforced in Class G, expect a much higher risk GPS enhanced "head on" if you fly direct tracks between obvious points.

[PeteSpencer]

I dislike immensely reading magazines/books from a screen I guess the paper copy will turn up in due course

Peter

[Gertie]

Not a bad read.

If you can read it. I gave up with that software before I'd got very far.

A downloadable PDF would be more useful to me. Then I can use a tool of my choice to zoom, scroll, etc, in a way that works for me.

[MachFlyer]

Thanks for your thoughts Irv. I think my instructor must be a little more enlightened than some as we plan flights by lines on paper chart which we then plot on skydemon to produce a printed off plog which we then use for the nav ex. If on my own he is also quite relaxed about me firing up skydemon on phone which I have on small keyboard with a cover on it so it's not always visable but I know it's available for me should I need a quick glance at it to reassure myself I have not totally messed up

Not sure if that would satisfy traditionalists but it seems to be working very well for me at the moment.

[Hawkwind]

Ironic to see on Page 12 an example of complex airspace to avoid, which does not have the Southend CAS shown, therefore the chart used must be at least 4 years old! (or is that the point?)

[Charles Hunt]

MachFlyer.

My take on it is that we have some chance of navigating against real features such as towns, reservoirs, railway lines, roads and the whole south coast comes in pretty handy where I am. But to identify a curving airspace boundary at some indeterminate height in 3 dimensional space against no fixed landmarks is extremely difficult.

Let your instructor guide you 'til your test, but in the real world, unless in your local patch that you know well or well away from controlled airspace, GPS is an indispensable part of your armoury to avoid infringing.

[mikehallam]

A nice content, a very good affair and it has that fancy page turning arrangement !

The awkwardness was reading it on my regular lap top due to the old fashioned magazine/newspaper style columnar layout, which for me meant :-

a) Using enlarge to get the characters to a readable size, and

b) Having to scroll down & then up & acrossfor every page, whereas if they could manage a single sheet format it would be more p.c. friendly.

[GrahamB]

The previous versions are all available via the CAA Publications search.

Sadly the new one has not found its way there yet.

[MachFlyer]

Charles H

I agree & its the fear of infringing that is one of the main reasons that I take it with me on my solo flights, I still do the nav via my chart & timer & looking out of the window but if I get brain overload, easily done with me, I know there is a tool there to help me out before it all goes pear shaped, obvs if GPS wasn’t with me there are other tools like D&D etc but at this stage of my training I just like having it there.

[Human Factor]

A nice content, a very good affair and it has that fancy page turning arrangement !

The awkwardness was reading it on my regular lap top due to the old fashioned magazine/newspaper style columnar layout, which for me meant :-

a) Using enlarge to get the characters to a readable size, and

b) Having to scroll down & then up & acrossfor every page, whereas if they could manage a single sheet format it would be more p.c. friendly.

Is there a way of downloading it to iBooks?