And I was lost again.

I wrote a week or so ago about the Virginia Military Aviation Museum. CA John and I were there last month to listen to a WWII P-51 pilot talk about flying in the war, then watch the museum's P-51 fly. He told a story that had both of us (and everyone else) laughing.

Obviously in the mid '40s there were very few radio nav-aids, and absolutely no type of RNAV. For American fighter and bomber pilots flying in combat, the aids to navigation were simply nonexistent. Nevertheless, planes had to get from A to B, and often times B was well over the horizon. Pilotage works well for most applications (such as private pilot training today), but there aren't many railroad tracks or water towers in the middle of the south Pacific Ocean. Instead, they relied on a combination of dead reckoning and what we nowadays jokingly call PTN navigation.

Point-the-Nose ("ehh...that'a'way") isn't an official method of navigation, but when it comes to finding something like a city along the shoreline, it works well.

For example, you know the city you're looking for is due east of you. Problem is, you don't know for certain what the winds aloft are doing, or how much they're going to blow you off course. If you point straight at your target, you'll probably end up miles and miles either left or right of it when you make landfall. Seems like a complex problem right? The solution is actually quite simple. After take off, just fly a few degrees left or right of course (your pick). When you do make landfall, no matter what the winds were enroute, you'll be off your target in which ever direction you picked. All you have to do then is follow the shoreline home (or to your bombing run).

Well the story goes like this. Our relatively newly minted fighter pilot is island hopping his way home with his squadron after an escort mission. Still in unfriendly airspace, the flight of P-51s enters a cloud deck just before their turn "off course." A matter of minutes pass, and so do the clouds. Unfortunately for our hapless pilot, he is now a flight of one. Come to find out later, he zigged when he was supposed to zag; everyone else turned right as he turned left.

"I was lost. I mean really lost. I just kept flying, hoping to find something. Instead the Jap Zeros found me."

All alone, with little ammunition left, and starting to worry about his gas situation, our pilot caught sight of a Japanese Zero diving at him from behind the sun. He knew the last thing he wanted was a turning fight against the Zero, so he decided to use his speed advantage. Turning toward the attacker, he put the coals to it and dove away. The Zero turned in behind the Mustang, but was out of range by the time he took a shot. His friend wasn't, though. With one Zero on his tail, our hero noticed another directly in front but well below his current position. Using what's called the "boom and zoom" tactic, he steepened his dive and squeezed off a few rounds from the Mustang's half dozen menacing .5in Browning machine guns. As he pulled out of the dive, he could see the Zero pilot's parachute hit the water. The other Zero was nowhere to be seen - he was in clear.

"But then I realized, I'm still lost! And now I've been flying really fast in no particular direction."

Just then, there was another glint from above him, in front of the sun. ANOTHER plane was diving on our unlucky man! Again he spooled his V-12 Merlin up, but this new combatant had the advantage. As this very fast mystery plane rolled onto his tail, he realized there were two of them! And they are twin engines? Twin booms?

These new combatants were actually American P-38s on patrol. Our pilot, now very relieved, established radio contact with his fellow aviators, and explained his predicament.

"I told them 'I'm low on fuel, out of ammo, and I have no idea where I am.' They said they'd lead me home, so I fell in behind them as we climbed back up to cruise. As we got to talking, I told them that I had just been jumped by two Zeros. Next thing I know, I look outside and they've both turned away and are bugging out of the area at full speed. Before I could say anything, they were over the horizon!

And I was lost again."

Everyone in the room cracked up. Obviously he ended up getting home safely, but it sounds as if there were moments of doubt (and rightly so). After an hour long speech, everyone piled out of the hanger to watch the museum's own P-51 fly. There was a small group of a dozen or so who stayed back, though, to try to hear more from this man who has done what most of us can only read about in books.