This is a guest post from a fellow but anonymous pilot who learnt about use of radio-navigation to identify VFR reporting points the hard way. There was no ensuing incident but there are lessons for all of them. If you also want to share something, contact me, I’ll be happy to publish it. Vincent.

“HXX you’re two nautical miles north of Whiskey…”

What happened? I flew (VFR) there today with a G1000-equipped aircraft, and with a very GPS-oriented mind. Yesterday evening, I entered the LSZH reporting points into the G1000. I had my portable GPS with me, that contained the (correct) coordinates, but I choose to get them again from the official visual chart, as a redundancy measure.

The official chart gives the points in two forms: HHMMSS coordinates and a radial/distance from KLO VOR. As I was too lazy to switch the G1000 in HHMMSS notation, I used the second form. Honestly I *did* notice a discrepancy between the resulting Whiskey point on the G1000 and on my other maps, but I did not pay too much attention to it… Turns out that I should have: the printed radial was the wrong one (R244 instead of R233).

What did I learn?
1. If something looks wrong, then it probably is
2. In VFR, the maps are probably the definitive information as per the reporting point locations. Looking at the W reporting point in LSZH CTR, one may see that it is right abeam a small city, before passing an important river and inside a peculiar railway loop.
3. If you’re going to double-check something from two different information sources, do it thoroughly (see point 1)