Clear Skies Often Aren't

I went flying this morning with some friends. The sky conditions everywhere were "clear below 12,000", or "clear" if a human was reporting it.

What there was, however, was a rather filthy inversion layer. The air was tinged brown as we climbed out. At about 3,500' AGL, we got on top of the layer. The sky there was really clear and blue. And cool.

But looking down, the slant-range visibility to the ground way maybe ten miles. Over the rural areas and the forests, it was almost about as navigable as flying over the sea (or northern Maine). There was nothing along a 40-mile stretch that was usable for navigation.

Therein lies the beauty of old VOR-based navigation. VORs, unlike those fancy-dan GPS screens, don't demand constant attention. Look at them every few minutes to check to see if you're still on the radial and the rest of the time, you can do important things such as look out of the windows for traffic. In smooth air, the actual mechanics of maintaining course and altitude just are not that involved.

Sure, the screen-based navigation gizmos are nice in IFR. But when it's VFR outside, it takes real discipline to ignore those suckers and just do the basics: Course, altitude and look for traffic. If all you're going to do is look at the damned screens, then screw flying-- get a flight-sim program and have at it.

It's the difference between flying the airplane and managing it.