The Dangers of GPS

[Subdeacon Joe 19,388]

Honest! It told me to land here! Not MY fault!

 

Lining up for approach I can sort of understand. But, GEEEEZZZZZ.....

[Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172 1,860]

I think the operative word here is:

STUDENT PILOT.

[Gunner Gatlin, SASS 10274L 399]

This explains it all:

 

"According to Torro, the pilot was a Chinese national and did not speak English well"

 

GG ~

[Jack Houston # 35508 0]

Re-Calculating!!!!!!!!

[Big Jake1001 126]

Fill 'er up and check the tires and get the windshield please, I'll be right back...gotta use the restroom.

Glad I brought a change of clothes.

 

Big Jake

[Old Scatterbrain 0]

let's see: multiple houses, trees lining the tarmac, fences, lightpoles, no typical runway markings, no hangars nor parked planes. Yep, this must be the place!

 

Oy!

[Hacker, SASS #55963 0]

unmarked air strip? no tower yep must be a drug run

 

Student pilot huh where was the instructor?

 

Not clear but it looks like the instructor if there ever was one forgot to teach him how to put his landing gear down.

(Unless it collapsed.)

[Old Scatterbrain 0]

Not clear but it looks like the instructor if there ever was one forgot to teach him how to put his landing gear down.

(Unless it collapsed.)

There are two different stories on that page: one about an emergency landing, and one about the lost guy. I was confused at first, too.

[el Gato Gordo - SASS #15162 0]

Sailed from Bimini to Lake Worth (Palm Beach), Florida, in '97, just beating a thunderstorm to get the hook down. We were talking on the VHF with another sailboat, about 10 miles back throughout the passage. As we were approaching the inlet about sunset, he started making noises that I had passed the harbor entrance.

 

I went below, checked my chart, and checked the waypoints on my GPS, and we were fine. I asked the Latitude & Longitude of his waypoint - and it was six miles south of the entrance buoy. If we hadn't caught the error, he would have piled up on the beach in a very violent thunderstorm. As it was, it was hairy enough for him to run the entrance in the dark with all the city lights behind the channel markers, and find a place to anchor.

 

Lesson: never believe waypoints that you extract from a book. Do your own navigation. He was using numbers from a cruising guide to set the waypoint on his GPS.

 

Buena suerte,

eGG

(who, right now, is homesick for the cruising life)

[Deadeye Doug Dalton SASS#65449L 0]

Honest! It told me to land here! Not MY fault!

 

Lining up for approach I can sort of understand. But, GEEEEZZZZZ.....

 

Any landing you walk away from is a good landing.

[Charlie Harley, #14153 1,934]

Never let piloting skills and common sense be supplanted by technology.

 

A compass and sectional map never run out of battery power.