Navigation in the air.

I regularly drive up and down the M3 and have recently noticed that frequently there are Chinook helicopters following the motorway. The most I have seen at once is 3, which is probably all that we have left in the country at present!

Whilst I can understand that a motorway is a very easy handrail to follow to your destination it seems very strange that in these days when GPS is in such common use, these aircraft do not to fly directly to their destination.

So what is going on? It may be that they are learning natural navigation techniques instead of reliance on electronics, but what ever is happening I hope they are not going to rely of following motorways when they get out to Afganistan or Iraq.

Does anyone know why they do this?

Lesson Plans

The education authority where I teach navigation classes in the evening have recently been tightening up their paperwork in an effort to improve the standards of teaching.

One of the results has been that tutors have to be able to show written lesson plans for each of their sessions if their class is inspected.

Although I always have a written plan at the start of the courses it is by its nature fairly broad. As the courses last for 20 weeks and you have no idea or the level of experience and formal education of the students before the course starts, it is hard to predict exactly what will be taught on any one week.

I have been creating a lesson plan for each individual lesson that relates more closely to where we are in that course but to borrow from the old military saying: "The plan rarely survives contact with the students."