From Offshore Sailing to Flight Navigator
The impulse came from New York: “If you are working for our airline, you should be able to make yourself useful in the cockpit.”
I did not start from zero – I brought transoceanic navigation experience from offshore sailing, knew how to work with a sextant and LORAN, and had a feel for weather, currents and track lines. The theoretical training for the Flight Navigator License took about four months; classic line training for navigators was already disappearing. In parallel, I obtained the radio license.
My primary role, however, remained the same: to solve the airline’s security problems creatively and discreetly. The navigator license was not a “hobby”, but the logical extension of that mindset into the operational world of flight operations.
Navigation Before GPS – Working in the Fog
At that time, civilian aircraft did not have GPS. The tools were LORAN, celestial navigation with a sextant through small astrodomes in the cabin ceiling, and the INS, the inertial navigation system which – if it worked perfectly – could in theory make the navigator redundant.
A typical exercise:
“Position somewhere near 55 North / 30 West. INS failed, LORAN unstable. Determine your exact position astronomically and compute the optimal great-circle route to JFK.”
What interested me was not pushing buttons, but the thinking behind it:
- determining position under uncertainty,
- building a reliable picture from all available information,
- and from there defining the best and safest way to the destination.
It was never about a love of gadgets. It was about navigation logic. The aircraft was secondary – the decision-making process was what mattered.
Holding Course – and Only Changing It When Reality Demands It
In classic navigation there is a simple rule: once the course is set, you fly it. You monitor, you correct if necessary – but you do not re-open the entire concept every five minutes.
There are of course exceptions. If you are over the South Atlantic with towering thunderstorms up to 60,000 feet ahead, you will need a meteorological diversion – a MetDiv. Then you recompute, replan and reprioritise. But those are external conditions, not internal moods.
That principle still shapes my work today:
- first a precise determination of where we really stand,
- then a clear course decision,
- then consistent execution – with adjustments when facts change, not when someone “has another idea”.
In some mandates today – especially in toxic constellations – I see the opposite: everything is questioned permanently long before any course has even been flown once. For real crisis work, that is fatal.
The Fourth Man on the Flight Deck
Later on, I often flew across the Atlantic as the “fourth man” on the flight deck – as Company Representative with navigation and radio license. Especially in the evenings, on approach into JFK when the airspace was crowded, the crew tired and the frequencies saturated, an extra head on the radios was worth a lot.
The captains appreciated someone who could take over radio work, keep alternative approach options in view, think through weather and traffic dynamics, and at the same time represent the airline’s interests.
One winter day over the North Atlantic made this particularly clear.
Shannon – the Old Safe Harbour
We were flying a 747 as “Clipper Seven Three One Heavy” when a passenger became seriously ill. His condition deteriorated quickly; every hour counted.
The captain reviewed possible diversion airports. Shannon had traditionally been the safe harbour for North Atlantic flights, but was officially closed because of a snowstorm.
I went on the radio, described the situation and asked for options. The first response was formally correct: Shannon was closed. On a second call, this time explicitly as Company Representative, the conversation changed.
The approach was calm and precise, the communication clear. It was one of those moments when you understand what navigation and clear executive communication in a crisis really mean: not just a line on a chart, but the ability to find the one path through a complex system of weather, technology, people and authorities that solves the problem at hand – in this case, giving a passenger the best chance of survival.
What Has Remained
Today, I do not move aircrafts anymore-normally. I support airlines, airports and companies in criminal-law and operational crisis situations. What remains from those days is the core of a navigator:
Even today, my speciality is to first determine the exact position in difficult conditions – and from there find the shortest and safest way out.
Whether the issue is Bogey Parts in the supply chain, internal offences in security units, cargo crime, corruption or complex internal investigations – I work according to the same principle as back then over the North Atlantic:
- situation picture instead of noise,
- course decision instead of endless debate,
- consistent implementation – with adjustments when the facts demand it.
I therefore still see myself less as a “classic lawyer” or “compliance person” than as what I was originally trained to be:
A navigator in difficult conditions. Only that today it is no longer about flight routes, but about crisis mandates.