Aviate, Navigate, Communicate
As pilots we hear this a lot from instructors and other pilots, but what does it actually mean in the air? The first part, Aviate, is adequately described by the joke about Prince Philip being take for a joyride in a De Haviland Moth. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about look up “Have you heard the one about”).
Aviation is most important and should be continued at an adequate standard and have a higher priority than navigation and communication. i.e don’t forget to fly the plane because your trying to look out of the window or read the map or talk to someone.
Now that we have aviation for granted we need to go where we should go by navigation. Don’t let navigation distract you from flying at any time. Even when you come to use radio navigation, keep you aircraft properly trimmed and flying at all times. Now the interpretaion of this rule gets a little more murky.
If I told you that when you were lost you should make navigation your priority and ignore communication, I’d be wrong. Communication can rescue you when you get lost.
If on the other hand your communication failed (radio failure), then as long as you were in the right place and followed the radio failure procedure you’d be mostly OK.
On the other hand if you wanted to cross through a zone and you knew the Red Arrows were on the other side somewhere, but couldn’t get a word in edge-wise on the radio (radio failure), then you navigation should be adjusted to keep you away from the zone until you can communicate. Which is more important now?
Bembridge Track
And perhaps this is where the Navigate, Communicate bit comes from.
So, to re-phrase the rule in a less ambiguous way we’d say “Always aviate. If aviation allows, always navigate and communicate, but do navigation as a higher priority task unless you’re lost, in which case communication is most important, but keep up the aviation and if you must communicate but can’t then sometimes adjust your navigation to compensate, but don’t forget the aviation.” I think that’s so much more catchy than the original!