Navigation Difficulties

According to an Associated Press article dated March 2, 2007, a company (170 soldiers) of Swiss soldiers lost their way during a nighttime exercise and marched into neighboring Lichtenstein. Apparently, noone in Lichtenstein noticed the troops before they realized where they were and returned to Switzerland.

Here is one link to the article: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-mistaken-invasion,0,2907128.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

You know I have a few GPS units here I don't use much...

Gee, they wandered "...just over a mile..." across the border. I'm not gonna tell you how far off course I have been when a little "confused"...

So, is Lichtenstien declaring war against the Swiss?

With their Army of nONE

Lichtenstien have threatened to use their ultimate weapon. The Mother In Law.
The Swiss have surrendered.

It would be easy to wander over into Lichtenstein. I have been there and it is 2 miles wide... well, a little bigger than that, but not by much.

Oh GOD! The Swiss are invading!

That's almost an oxymoron.

What I take notice is; after straying off course for a mile, they realized their error and straightened out their course. That's not too bad since they did it on their own.

In other news, Victorinox has released two new models of their Swiss Army Knives. The new ?U-Turn? model contains an integrated compass tool, while the ?SatKnife? model sports a full-featured GPS.

Glad to see that the old saying applies to other armies as well;

Q. What's the fastest way to get lost?
A. Give the LT the map.

Truer words have never been spoken....

'Specially if it is a butterbar...

I suppose that's why it was an exercise -- now you know better than to hand the map to a Medical Service Corps Ensign. While he was off learning how to navigate inside your chest and patch battlefield wounds, others were learning that clouds are not good reference marks for navigation.

My navigation check ride OTOH went quite well, doing 300 KIAS I was over my target within 10 sec of my scheduled target time. I was just an Ensign too, but I didn't have anything to distract me like learning battlefield surgery.

So did you guys just laugh or did you try to teach him the error in his thinking?

Not so funny at my taste. The clouds could be used as bearing aid. Just be observant to your surroundings all the time. In the ocean a solitary cloud or compact groups of them would usually stay over a distant (invisible) islands. Same on the land - above high mountain peaks below horizon or not visible in the woods. Noticing the direction of overcast clouds movement could be sufficient for a short term navigation difficulties resolution (like if you've lost bearing on some land object accidentally and have no compass).

Ten seconds? And you passed???

Yeah, but that was the training command, they were lax

The good thing about that training is the thought process that's instilled. The chart was layed out with time hacks; if you stay on time you know what you should see and at what time -- don't be early, don't be late. My primary instrument was a stop watch.

There was a general rule that if you don't see your waypoints, then turn on time. Problem there is that we had guys flying into a headwind end up turning down the wrong valley. Trust me they never saw another waypoint. All they had to do was count ridgelines.

What were you flying, and where? Where we are parked right now we look at Widby Island out our windshield, and see Intruders roaring around all the time (I thougth they were gone, but I guess they still used them for training or something)...

the A6-E's (Electronics countermeasures) are stll being used.

The only low levels I got to fly were training flights. After that I did other stuff.

Are those Intruders or Prowlers? Whidbey still has lots of EA-6B Prowlers (until the FA-18F "Growler" replaces it), but I'm fairly sure the Intruders are all gone.

You're right! The intruders are gone but it's the prowlers that the Navy or Marines are still using.

I haven't had a close enough look to see if they are Prowlers or not, could only tell by the shape that they were one or the other. Have to keep looking I guess, but you are probably right, they are Prowlers...