Since Jim gave a resume, I guess I will, too. I learned very basic skills in the Boy Scouts in the mid-60's. As we didn't backpack much, I never got proficient.

I learned aircraft navigation in a course at the Air Force Academy. It was in the T-29 which dates me a little. (1973 I think.) This included celestial navigation and dead reckoning.

In survival school, I learned ground navigation. Our test was a 2 week trek bushwacking about 7 miles at night without a map. Except for one drawn in the dirt before leaving. All we knew was the straight line distance to where we were going each day. We also got some general landmarks for each day's destination.

As a pilot, I wasn't expected to know how to navigate in the KC-135, but a couple times I navigated across the Atlantic using dead reckoning and celestial navigation. (This was in the days before INS and GPS and we weren't allowed to use LORAN.)

As an instructor pilot in the T-37, one of the things I taught was low level visual navigation which primarily used dead reckoning and visual landmarks. I also taught the ground school on how to use the prayer wheel. (A fancy circular slide rule.)

What I can say is my skills are VERY rusty, so I'm likely to say something wrong along the way. I will also say it would be very difficult to learn navigating in the woods using a map, a compass and a stopwatch without practicing each skill until proficient.

Since I stay on trails, my needs are less, but a couple times this summer we got on the wrong trail and knowing how to read a topographical map kept us from going off too far in the wrong direction.

One thing that has disappointed me is I haven't found a single comprehensive website on learning basic navigation using a map and a compass. Sounds like a good book for me to write.

BTW, nobody answered the last brain teaser.