With this in mind, let's review non-GPS navigation basics. After all, batteries can die, and GPS signal errors are not unheard of. Pilotage Talk about simple. Pilotage is nothing more than noting prominent checkpoints on a chart used for VFR navigation, locating them from your vantage point in the air, and flying from checkpoint to checkpoint. The trick here is to pick easily identifiable checkpoints and to remember that what looks prominent on a chart may be practically invisible from the cockpit.
Solitary racetracks can make bad checkpoints.
A major highway cloverleaf or junction of two rivers often is much easier to identify. By the way, altitude is your friend when using pilotage. The higher your altitude, the better you'll be able to see your checkpoints coming into view. Neither do aviation instructional texts. In the air, observations of groundspeed between checkpoints, together with heading information, let you determine the actual winds aloft as you fly a route.