I could follow E75, the main road between the two cities, but it is too wiggly. I will end up burning extra fuel for no reason and need more time to reach my destination.
So a straight line is the way to go. But supposing I do not have a fancy GPS system, how do I keep my helicopter pointing towards my destination? A compass helps to point to the general direction, but I can still end up several miles off course.
I’d imagine you navigate the same way you would on the ground, with compass and map. If you have a map with magnetic declination factored in, it will be just as accurate as a GPS.
Here’s a map of radio navigation aids in Greece. Roughly speaking, the signal you get from the VOR beacons tells you your compass bearing relative to them; so if you tune into a VOR station and it tells you “you’re due west of me”, you can fly due east and arrive at the beacon. Then you tune into another beacon and fly to that one in the same way. My guess is that the Skopelos VOR (see above map) would serve you pretty well for your hypothetical itinerary.
Absent electronic aids, use Pilotage. Simply put, using a map and a compass, you fly from one recognized terrain feature, to another. The trick is to understand the information on the map and how it relates to the features on the ground. Elevation, valleys, streams, RR tracks, roads, cities, mountain peaks, etc. all are prominent and easily spotted.
Well, if you’re using map and compass some knowledge of magnetic declination helps considerably in keeping you on course. The further you’re going the more important that knowledge is. Lack of proper correction for this is probably a major reason for getting off course while using a compass.
Other than that, you use landmarks to help keep you on course.
This is, of course, assuming you’re not using radio navigation (VOR, NDB, etc.) or GPS. Back when I was actively flying I’d used combinations of all of the above as a way of double-checking my progress. It gets easier with practice.
Back when I flew VFR it was always by following landmarks. In nice weather I could generally see hills 100km away and would orientate myself based on them, as the weather got worse I’d rely more on close in stuff such as roads and power lines. Living in a mountainous country with good visibility meant that I never had to use the compass except during training.
I tried to use VOR on my long cross country when I was training. The route was VNY-OXR-SBB-VNY, and some of the terrain was a little hilly. Since I was maintaining about 400 feet AGL, I couldn’t pick up a signal. I just followed the freeways, used my map and compass, and checked out road signs and water tanks for position reports.
This is one reason that water towers are often painted with the name of the town.
Richard Collins explained what to do when lost…from memory:
Pilots DO get lost. If you are lost and you see an airport the name of the airport is often painted on a hanger roof. If not then the wise thing to do is land there. If you ask where you are, then everyone will know you are lost. So what you should do is buy some fuel which is something a wise and experienced pilot never passes up a chance to do. The location of the airport will be printed on the fuel receipt…but don’t go looking at it as soon as it is handed to you, or everyone will know you were lost. Instead, casually stuff it into your pocket without even glancing at it. Then casually stroll into the restroom (which is another thing the wise and experienced pilot never passes up an opportunity to do) and THEN pull out the receipt and find out where the heck you are.
You can see landmarks ok and could navigate using them if you had to, but its not accurate enough for normal use. The higher you are, the less you are able to tell precisely where you are by sight alone (consider that it is easy to stand and touch a spot on a wall but if you stand some distance away it is impossible to tell whether you are a few degrees left or right of that spot.)
Generally speaking, the closer you are to what ever you’re using for navigation, the more accurate it will be. The closer to the ground you are, the more accurate visual navigation is and the closer to a radio beacon you are, the more accurate instrument navigation is. At high altitudes where airliners cruise it is best to use radio navigation and/or GPS because it is predictable and consistant. At low altitudes you can track visually fairly accurately and airliners will sometimes track visually for the approach and landing but that is a special case.
The problem with this is that at modern airports, you would normally need to radio the tower and ask for permission to land so that they can assign you a runway slot, etc. Also, if you are entering a country, I think you would need to let them know that so they can have customs/immigration officers waiting to process you.
Most US airports do not have towers and do not require air traffic control permission to take off or land.
This may be puzzling to the general, non-pilot public who are only familiar with the major hub airports that do require such procedures. The little airports the general public doesn’t deal with vastly outnumber the hubs and, as I noted, don’t require permission to land.
If you’re crossing the US border you need to let ATC know ahead of time so they don’t send a couple of F-16’s to meet you. Since 9/11 they take that sort of thing a bit seriously.
Of course you need to deal with customs, too, but these days the potential armed escort might be of greater concern to those actually involved.