Destinations Finding your way
W
by
Philip Handleman
hen I learned to fly, satellite-based navigation in the form of the global positioning system was so many years away from realization that it was akin to science fiction. The airport and flight school denizens were still adjusting to the very high frequency omnidirectional range, with its network of ground-based antennas resembling upside-down ice cream cones. If somebody had told us that before powered flight’s centennial year, many light planes would be guided with pinpoint accuracy by cost-effective handheld devices receiving signals from finely calibrated instruments orbiting in space, we simply would have dismissed him as a deluded knave. Most of the nav and comm radios I used in those days were hardly worth their onboard weight. It wasn’t that the peripherals industry lacked the know-how; it was that the dominant attitude reckoned electronic gear to be exceedingly ancillary to the low-end of general aviation. The readily available products reflected the five-and-dime mindset. Weekend pilots back then tended to fly at the lower altitudes, which limited the
utility of the line-of-sight VOR stations. Even if you were lucky enough to have an operable receiver, the course deviation indicator often hung limp until the inverted ice cream cone nearly came into view. I don’t remember anyone bothering to wear the rinky-dink earphones of the time. Exchanges with air traffic control were comparatively infrequent, since the airspace enjoyed a dearth of encumbrances. You just hoped to interpret the occasional static-laden, marginally intelligible words emanating all aquiver from the bulkhead’s built-in speaker by the experience that comes from rote procedure. “Enter pattern. Report left downwind.” Got it. “Roger.”
Above: Ptolemy’s World Map was conceived in the 2nd century. When European cartographers finally received a Latin translation of Ptolemy’s work, the map that resulted in the 15th centur y, as seen here, represented a remarkably accurate depiction of the planet as it was then known. The New World was yet to be discovered. (Collection of National Digital Library Polona via Wikimedia. org/Wikipedia/commons) VINTAGE AIRPLANE 15
