RogerW wrote:sono wrote: CAT-1 is a short VFR flight so one can always look out the window.
All the CAT Raings 1 - 11 are VFR so I would hope you are following the roads, mountains, and shorelines while doing them.
It's all just part of the adventure!
Roads? Check, but only for roads that stand out, which most don’t.
Shorelines? For CAT-1 and CAT-2, it’s essential to know that there are rivers and a reservoir that have little to no water in them for much of the year. When dry, they will look very different from the air, assuming that they are even easily identifiable. Understanding this requires close attention to the symbols on the aeronautical chart plus internet research about what is going on with those rivers and reservoir seasonally. Ever heard of flash floods? Well the Cuyama is a flash river, and that's not by a long shot all that's going on with the "rivers" and "reservoir".
Mountains? For CAT-1 and CAT-2, we are talking about Los Pedros National Forest. Los Pedros presents serious weather and orientation issues, and a very big issue if one needs to land immediately. I defy anyone who lacks intimate knowledge of Los Pedros to fly across it
in real life using only the aeronautical chart and his or her eyesight. Doing so could well turn into more of an “adventure” than one bargained for, assuming that you aren’t dead on impact. If seriously interested in traversing Los Pedros, maybe chuck the aeronautical chart and have a serious look at the U.S. Geological Survey topographic map, the National Forest Service map and Google Earth. Also, maybe check news reports. Last August, part of the CAT-1/CAT-2 area was caught up in a significant forest fire, with results probably hard to miss from the air, and therefore useful.
If one is going to fly across Los Pedros, the obvious way to do it is to use GPS. To my astonishment, the YouTube videos on the CAT-1 and CAT-2 exercises ignore GPS and rely on radio navigation. Lord, this is 2019. Radio navigation is a backup at best. It is rapidly being deprecated, indeed widely being decommissioned.
To put it bluntly, in my view none of the many YouTube videos about the CAT-1 and CAT-2 exercises show an appreciation for the weather, navigation and safety issues involved. In fact, I think that they demonstrate shortcomings of simulated vs real life flying that raise questions, if one intends to fly in the real world, about the wisdom of
self-directed flight simulation.
My personal takeaway from watching
all of the YouTube videos on these exercises is that flight simulation may not be a good way for me to spend time outside of using it to internalise things like checklists.