In rec.aviation.student Michael wrote:
The
ability to take a wag at the course and distance quickly and
accurately really only comes from having computed it multiple times
and observed patterns.

If it were up to me, we would go back to the 30 minute XC plan. That
would force the student to keep drilling for speed, and through sheer
repetition he would start gettting a feel for what the results ought
to be.

When I was doing my cross-country work, I planned WAY more cross-country
trips than I actually went on. Most of the trips got cancelled due to
weather. This worked in my favor, in the long run, because I got exactly
that repeated drilling in the process.

When checkride time came, I had no problem planning the trip (granted, the
DE gave me the destination a few days in advance, but I actually planned
it that morning, with current weather). And the cross-country part of the
written exam was a snap, too.

I agree. And there are things that I think could be safely dropped
from the paper planning process. Compass deviation? Trying to
correct out those sub-5-degree errors by looking at a whiskey compass
bouncing around in the turbulence? Get real. It may have made sense
in the days of dead reckoning hundreds of miles at a time, but those
days are gone. These days, we dead reckon at most 50 miles.

The deviation cards in the planes I trained in had very small corrections
-- smaller than my ability to hold a heading at the time. When I
explained that to my CFI, he didn't hassle me about not having deviation
figures in my flight plan. Not to mention, of course, that the
actual-vs-forecast winds would probably impact my course by more than the
deviation anyhow, in a random direction, which basically makes the
deviation figures noise unless they're significant.

And the moronic triple-interpolation for takeoff and landing distance
in those Cessna books? Waste of time. Round up the temperature and
altitude, round down the pressure, and call it good. Gives you a
little cushion (little enough, the way most rentals are maintained).

Right. People forget why they're doing this. It's not "how much runway
do I need", it's "is the runway long enough". In a rental, if you're so
close you need to do exact interpolation, then the runway is already not
long enough.

.... Alan
--
Alan Gerber
PP-ASEL
gerber AT panix DOT com