I find myself — and I’m sure I’m not alone in this — consulting Google Maps before setting off by car even to places I know perfectly well how to reach. The Google lady knows even more than I do about the roads. She checks all the shortcuts. She tells me there is “usual traffic” and that I will arrive at 3:03. She is almost never wrong. I’m a far cry from our forebears, who expected no better than “I’ll meet you at Laramie in August.”
Technicalities: The Synthetic and the Real
Key Takeaways:
- The article chronicles the evolution of navigation from basic pilotage and complex radio aids like ADF and VOR/DME, which often induced a "lost-in-the-sky" feeling, to the effortless precision of modern GPS.
- Older navigation methods demanded significant skill, mental calculations, and ingenuity to determine one's position, highlighting the constant challenge and occasional disorientation faced by pilots.
- While GPS has made navigation universally easy and precise, the author, an experienced pilot, laments the vanishing "texture" and rich sensory experiences that defined traditional flying, replaced now by a more "synthetic" and less engaging world.
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