Peter, in addition to UK PPLs being discouraged from using GPS in the past, they were (are?) also not taught ANY radio navigation up to issue of the PPL..... I believe the JAA/EASA syllabus has changed that but as you say there are still plenty of PPLs out there....
AQ
One could (quite reasonably) argue that GPS doesn't need to be in the basic PPL syllabus, since any navigation under the privileges it confers can be done the old fashioned way.
Whilst it doesn't need to be, it still should be. I prefer the FAA approach of being able to require the demonstration of any kit fitted, although this would mean it being included for some but not for others. We are still a fair way away from all training aircraft being fitted with GPS.
I was lucky in that my PPL instructor made sure I knew how to use a GNS430. I also had a decent grounding in RNAV through a bit of playing with FSX. It still surprises me how many PPLs don't really know how to use VORs and NDBs.
Although I fully embrace GPS for 'going places' flying, I am rather fond of old-fashioned navigation. I've always found it pretty reliable, so long as you have a decent wind forecast (if you don't then you'll have one after the first waypoint) and choose sensible waypoints. People look to put it down, I think, by calling it 'compass and stopwatch', but it reality people use a DI and a clock. Using a compass makes it somewhat tougher to fly headings to the degree of accuracy required.
I'm prepared to cut the CAA some slack over their slowness in embracing GPS. To be fair, they weren't to know it was going to be here to stay. It could have been a flash in the pan and quickly usurped by something better, or equally the military could have decided it was too valuable to let us civvies use. Tech has to mature and become ubiquitous before you start training people that said tech is a part of their lives.
We should all learn to use modern tech. But equally, no-one should be passed fit to command an aeroplane if they can't navigate without GPS.
I'm OK flying well known (to me) routes through my local busy Terminal Area, avoiding Class B, getting where I need to go through the Class E under and around the Class B, and operating from Class D towered airports within the Class E... with no transponder, no electrical system, no radio navigation of any kind including GPS. What it takes for me is good familiarity with the particular local area and how the chart fits the landmarks.
I surely do prefer having a battery powered GPS 196 on board (one), running in low power consumption mode. Even that simple setup makes airspace awareness relatively easy, and I wouldn't leave with the GPS turned off if I could leave with it turned on. Also wouldn't fly in an unfamiliar Terminal Area without it.
Have yet to be given any phone numbers to call.
Whilst it doesn't need to be, it still should be. I prefer the FAA approach of being able to require the demonstration of any kit fitted, although this would mean it being included for some but not for others. We are still a fair way away from all training aircraft being fitted with GPS.
I think that reason alone will ensure GPS is not in the syllabus.
This will be seen as a cynical view but the PPL training business has no mandate to produce pilots who can fly from A to B. In say the RAF you have to, otherwise all your expensive kit will get smashed up, not to mention the political fallout from crashes. But in PPL training you train for the skills test and apart from the night qualification and (in the UK) the IMCR, that is about all you can sell them. You can hope for some self fly hire afterwards but with some 90% of customers abandoning flying totally within a year or two, most of that will come from the established pilot community.
If schools got paid a commission on miles flown post-PPL, they would all be banging on the CAA's door to make GPS mandatory. Until then, they will be doing the opposite, because the last thing they need is more costs.
The funny thing is that except for some specific exercises all of the PPL can be taught with a GPS but very few people know that.
I'm prepared to cut the CAA some slack over their slowness in embracing GPS. To be fair, they weren't to know it was going to be here to stay
With Selective Availability having been abandoned mid-2000, and with the massive economic dependence on GPS in the USA and elsewhere, I think the CAA had plenty of time.
DR does work, pretty well, but when it goes wrong it goes badly wrong. I think most cases of where people get lost with it involve a false positive identification of a ground feature, so you don't realise you are lost until you can't find the one after that, by which time it's probably too late.
IME, the people who I flew with and who were very good at it were people who were constantly flying in the same area (instructors mostly). In that case, DR is easy.
DR is also easy in feature-rich areas. For example flying up and down the Adriatic, you would soon learn to pick off the Croatian islands.
But take some boring landscape, throw in 3km vis (note that 1.5km vis is legal on a PPL, as of April 2012) and DR becomes a lot harder. With 1.5km vis DR is very difficult; in fact I recall landing off an 800ft DA IAP in that and could barely see the start of the runway at the MAP.
It very much depends.
I don't do a lot of x-country flying, preferring aerobatics and air experience flights with sick and handicapped children instead. These are easily flown without GPS and in fact a handheld GPS would be a hazard when doing aerobatics. (And the on-board GPS in that particular aircraft is next to useless so I switch it off anyway, so that I don't get distracted by the blinking warning lights.)
For x-country work I actually work the other way around. I look at the equipment I have and base my route on that. In an aircraft that has ADF/VOR/DME I might use NDBs/VORs/DMEs as waypoints. In an aircraft with moving map GPS I might just plan DCT with doglegs around CAS, or use intersections as waypoints. In a bare bones aircraft I would follow roads, rivers, railways and use junctions as waypoints. SkyDemon on the iPad would be there (space permitting) for backup, and on a recent flight across the North Sea I have to admit that SkyDemon on the iPad was my primary navigation instrument. (With two other GPSs on board as backup.)
But would I be happy on a significant x-country without any GPS on board as backup to whatever navigation technique I use? No, definitely not. Fortunately I own a few GPSs (Garmin eTrex+OziExplorer+digitized Jeppesen charts for the whole of Europe, plus iPad+SkyDemon+Air Nav Pro, plus a crappy GPS in my Nokia E52) so I never have to find myself in that situation.
plus a crappy GPS in my Nokia E52
As a former owner of an E51 
and a current owner of a 700, what app did you use?
AFAICT there is only one option for Symbian: AFtrack. There are no aviation maps for its private format and there are no ways to make any because it supports only basic rectangular projection and all aviation maps are LCC. It's a nice app however and the track log can be exported straight to google maps/earth.
No app whatsoever. I got that E52 quite a while ago and was delighted to find it had a GPS on board... for a few minutes. Until I found that it only displays lat/long, and you can navigate to exactly one waypoint - no navigation along a route seems to be supported. Anything else requires apps, (paid) subscriptions to maps and so on. So I never played with it again.
Out of curiosity I just turned the GPS on and left the phone on the window sill here in my office. 15 minutes later, still no GPS position whatsoever.
It has just disqualified itself to be even the backup to the backup GPS. I won't mention "Nokia E52" and "GPS" in the same sentence again.
With 1.5km vis DR is very difficult
Good point. I do recall my instructor showing me flight in said conditions and expressing the view that even though my soon-to-be-held licence would permit visual flight in those conditions, it was essentially instrument flight. I agreed.
But I was lucky enough to have a really, really good instructor. Obviously not all are so good, and some are probably downright rubbish.
A lot depends on the instructor. They have a huge amount of autonomy. Even more depends on the student. I figured that as I was spending the thick end of £200 per hour for instruction, I wanted to learn as much as I could about real flying. I would do all the reading, research and learning I could in my own time. Being a scientist helps. When I started learning to fly I didn't need to be taught how an aeroplane flies, what the control surfaces do, or how radio navaids are used. Essentially I then spent a few hours in the circuit getting the feel for how to land, then everything else I was being taught in the air was 'procedure' rather than motor skills or basic understanding. This meant we ended up having to find things to fill the 45hrs with, so we learnt to use the GPS and made a few trips to places that I chose.
If students don't come prepared and they chew up the 45hrs (and more) just being taught the basics of flying the aeroplane, then the instructor isn't going to get much of a chance to introduce them to things like GPS. As you say - the instructors just have a mandate to get them through the test. This is a shame.
My only regret is that I wasn't more proactive in managing what I learnt during my PPL training. I didn't realise at the time that I could do tailwheel or night flying as part of the 45hrs, and that those hours would then count towards those qualifications.
The only idea I can think of is a mandatory piece of post-skills test training. Say 2hrs ground and 3hrs flying, which is based around planning a real trip and includes RNAV, GPS, controlled airspace, etc.
The only idea I can think of is a mandatory piece of post-skills test training. Say 2hrs ground and 3hrs flying, which is based around planning a real trip and includes RNAV, GPS, controlled airspace, etc.>
If you learn to fly in the US, the above is very much part of the initial training and also part of the checkride.
the above is very much part of the initial training and also part of the checkride.
How very true, but I wonder how much of the unquestionably more thorough US PPL training is driven by the actual ability of the fresh US PPL holder to fly over a vast area, due to the uniform airspace system, the "free" charts for that, the clear and handy airport data publications, the "free" VFR and and IFR charts for those, the "can do" attitude of US ATC, the acceptance of GPS for navigation, etc.
If one was to train people to fly confidently all over Europe, one would need to do a lot of extra stuff in the syllabus.
I am not saying it would take longer to do the whole PPL - because there is so much dross currently. I recall spending maybe 10-20hrs on the slide rule ground school and the related practice for the nav exams and the flying tests where its use was mandatory.
The bottom line is that a fresh US PPL holder should know enough to fly VFR all over the USA, whereas a fresh UK PPL holder will definitely not know enough to fly all over Europe.
