What is it? Its just what it sounds like. You navigate, all pilots do it. Only now, with more emphasis on precision and time. Flight crews (pilot and observer) are given a list of Lat/Long coordinates, they could be a tower, a cemetery, or even a statue. You then have 30 minutes to plan the flight, leg times, checkpoints and fuel burn.
Then you get to go fly it, we fly the routes at 800 feet, with nothing but a stopwatch and a sectional. No VORs, no GPS, not even ADFs. When you are done, you should be within a few seconds of your end time, and a tenth of a gallon of your fuel burn. We're not looking for the fastest (A 152 fast?!). We're looking for the ones closest to their plan.Routes vary in length, but are generally forty-five minutes to one hour long.
Sound like fun? Nav'ers meet at the airport whenever they can to fly their routes. Since you will be piloting an aircraft in this event, you need at least a Private Pilot certificate to try out. If you are interested, contact one of our coaches for more information: