Hell, I'll just fly west till I hit the Hudson. I couldn't pull over and ask directions unless I chanced to see the beacon of an airport. He moved thumb and fingers as though he was saying a very slow rosary. Otters don't go very fast, but if he'd dropped the near-featureless map and lost his place, we might as well have landed, parked, and waited for the Mounties to find us. Charts are security.
Charts are essential.
Even a cockpit filled with computers doesn't substitute for a map. Some months ago, riding in the jumpseat of an SAS 757 from Oslo to Newark, New Jersey, I was amused to notice that the first officer, sitting behind navigation displays the size of small television sets, not only kept track of our progress on a paper chart but had outlined the route with a yellow highlighter. He whacks it again and again against a steel partition. GPS is also a tool, but don't leave the sectional out of your toolbox because of it. Sectional charts are often taken for granted, yet they are printing and publishing accomplishments of immense complexity, acts of reproduction that approach an art form.