My point exactly. Ironically Mr Fosset is the last person one would expect to disappear without trace. It's easy to criticise but proof it can happen to the most experienced.
It's a risky endeavor, this flying stuff. But so is leaving your house to get the mail (could get hit by a car, ya know). Even though the verdict is unknown on the Fosset thing it's unlikely he made a navigational blunder like this person did. "It" can happen to anyone but this particular "it" is only going to happen to the unprepared.
not only the unprepared... it can happen to the under trained.
When i was working on my private i had a couple of GPS oriented cross country flights. My instructor moved to another state and i didnt fly for about a month. as a result i changed schools and instructors. the new school plane didnt have GPS and we did a dual cross country by chart and stopwatch... the next day i was signed off for solo cross country... and i got lost.
i wasnt unprepared per say, i just wasnt trained enough at the time. :-/
I had all the check points i needed, i had a good current chart, i had studied the route, i had all of my flight bag belongings etc.
what got me was the fact that about 80 miles into my cross country there were two towns close by one another which were very similar and i had confused one for another and about 30 minutes later found myself scratching my head.
i went through the "5 Cs" in my head "Climb, Conserve, Communicate, Confess and Comply" which would require me to climb to a higher altitude for a better vantage point; and begin to conserve fuel with a lower power setting and a leaner mixture. If i was still unable to determine my position i would communicate with ATC... confess my situation and comply with their instructions.
I did the exact opposite of the 5 C's though.
I swooped down to a local town at about 1500 AGL and read the water tower near the center of town.
"Mt. Vernon Tigers!"
I was about 13 miles east of where i needed to be and made a prompt correction and was back on course in no time.
that few degrees of course error put me a substantial distance off course in well under an hour.
