RCS South Chile - A Flight by Pilotage

Before GPS revolutionised just about everything, most of us old-timey pilot types used either dead reckoning or pilotage - or a combination of the two. While the two techniques overlap in some areas, at their core they approach cross-country flights in totally different ways.

In its purest form, 'dead reckoning' (short for deduced reckoning) involves picking a compass heading and holding it until you reach the next waypoint, while using elapsed time to calculate your position. If you're lucky, you have some interim information that allows you to adjust your compass heading to correct for wind; sailors used a rock on a rope to gauge drift, but we can call flight service and get the winds aloft along our route. Even without the corrections, however, by holding the compass heading you'll come out somewhere in the general neighbourhood of where you want to be. If there are no major wind changes and the leg isn't too long, you may even hit it on the nose.

If you monitor your progress across the ground below, and don't keep your nose pressed to the GPS screen, you're actually navigating with a combination of dead reckoning and pilotage. Here, ground references help to verify the accuracy of your dead reckoning.

For the first time in MSFS you will be challenged to fly in the same way as many pioneers in aviation navigated their flights. Once you try it, you will always go back for more. Fun from start to finish - guaranteed!

• Detailed route waypoints: distance and direction to next waypoint, exact photos of waypoints as seen in Bing or Google map information on waypoints as needed. Airports on the route, rivers, highways and other reference points.
• 26 waypoints to destination
• Five flights with weather presets
• Six new weather presets
• Make up your own weather at any waypoint
• A friendly co-pilot giving you tips on each waypoint