And whatever you do, don't forget your manual compass deviation rules: accelerate north, decelerate south

Trivia note: I believe the standard compass is called a "whiskey compass". Not sure why. Probably because if that's all the nav gear you got working you'll probably be using copious quantities of whiskey after landing. (Actually if memory serves I believe the early compasses floated in whiskey. No doubt this practice did not last very long. I think they use kerosene now)

The explanation I have read is that it is a "wet compass" (a ball floating in liquid), which was abbreviated "W compass", which is pronounced "whiskey compass" in the NATO phonetic alphabet that pilots use. I doubt whiskey was ever used to fill them, since even water would have worked better in terms of cost, transparency, evaporation, or boiling point.

I suspect it would have been freezing point that was most important, and whiskey was a readily available source of low freezing point liquid.

I've read that as well.

Just trying to share a little FBO-lore. It's common to tell the whiskey compass story in the fashion I have. http://iflyasa.com/2009/10/11/whiskey-compass/

I was aiming for tone, not accuracy. There are all sorts of topics that pilots discuss with great vim and vigor. I was trying to convey that feeling. Looks like I missed the boat.

"We wouldn't be lost if Bob here hadn't drank the compass."

I doubt any pilot would forget their grid north / magnetic north conversions. I hope not, anyway. That stuff got drilled into us in the cadets.

Isn't that the same problem though? Easier from them to do one calculation on the ground in advance rather than pilots having to worry about a conversion in the air.

Particularly since the pilot would still have to look up the local conversion, since it varies from place to place.

ICAO VFR maps contain the magnetic deviation as information - you just have to apply it to all your directions and be able to remember in what direction you have to correct ;) Not so trivial under stress. Anyway, on US and EU latitudes, the difference is not much bigger than 2 or 3 degrees, right?

No. The magnetic declination can be quite significant even in the continental US, and it isn't determined by latitude alone:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IGRF_2000_magnetic_declina...

Thanks the correction! I've only used european maps where the deviation is usually small. Local bias...

Thanks for the map; I always thought the declination was pretty tiny. Kind of shocking to realize it's 20° in my house.

Trick question: the correct answer is you eject immediately.

that just means there is a market for ultra-low-power battery-assisted magnetic-to-true-north converters!