Do you flight plan?

In a previous article, Jeff said:
airport and what is available there. I like towered airports, ones with
restaurants, and if staying, they have to have rental cars on the field. I wont
use an airport that wont have my car waiting on me when I get there. I

If I'm going somewhere specific that is a sleeply little airport with no
services except the airport dog, I've always got an alternate that will
offer an ILS to a long runway - and that's usually the towered airport
with the rental cars and food and lodging near by. Even if the weather
isn't bad, it's nice to know where you could go for plan B.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
About Windows XP, seen in Forbes Magazine ..
"...the world's richest Chief Software Architect continues a record for
design elegance unmatched since the Yugo."

Jay Honeck wrote:
My primary reason for flying at 2900 feet AGL (if you consider that
low--I do!) is that it frees me from having to think about airways

I was presuming he meant lower than 2900 AGL.


I almost never fly higher than 2000 AGL, and spend most of my time at
1500. I got into that habit when I spent most of my time flying below
the Washington class B's 1500 foot veil. Now, even on the Eastern Shore
of Maryland and Delaware, I still fly at 1500' most of the time. I like
looking at stuff on the ground. :-)

-- Jay


__!__
Jay and Teresa Masino ___(_)___
http://www2.ari.net/jmasino/ ! ! !

Checkout http://www.oc-adolfos.com/
for the best Italian food in Ocean City, MD and...
Checkout http://www.brolow.com/ for authentic Blues music on Delmarva

One other thing to do while you're pouring over the sectionals is look for
those little parachute symbols. Even if you're up high, some parachutists are
higher.

Jose

--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

Basically, I download DUATs weather the night before and run my
Flitesoft program to get a time enroute. Then I run my finger across
my route and the charts to look for any special use airspace. The
thing that concerns me most nowadays is the TFR's. I usually look for
them in the DUATs download, the aeroplanner website, or both. In good
weather that's about it. In times of poor weather, I may monitor it
for a couple days before on various internet sites. On longer flight I
check out the cheap fuel on airnav.
--
Gene Seibel
Hangar 131 - http://pad39a.com/gene/plane.html
Because I fly, I envy no one.




Having received my PPL recently and been on several cross countries, I was
wondering how extensive of a flight plan do people prepare before the trip?

Do you guys do all the checkpoints on a map, calculate time/distance/fuel to
each leg? Do you just draw the line on the map and mark checkpoints that you
expect to see but not calculate other things? Do you always calculate winds
aloft and fly the appropriate heading?

I have found myself getting lazy and I dont do all that I did when planning
x-countries when I was training. I tend to draw my line and mark
checkpoints, make sure I have plenty of fuel to get to my destination (plus
an hour more) based on 6gal/hr average. But I dont calculate
time/distance/fuel to each leg. I also have a GPS so that makes getting lazy
easier!

How much do you all plan before each x-country? Am I the only slacker?

Nasir

In a previous article, Blanche said:
Roy Smith wrote:
Along those lines, I think the most important thing to take on any trip
in a small plane is a fully-charged credit card. It can buy you fuel,
emergency repairs, dinner (or a hotel room) while you wait out weather,
a rental car, or an airline ticket.

Cash. Always accepted. Never refused.

I've had hotels refuse to take me because even though I had sufficient
cash in my hand, I had maxed out my credit card (long story, long business
trip).

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
If Alan Turing was alive today, the homosexuality
would be OK but he'd be in trouble for codebreaking.
-- Martin Bacon

Roy Smith wrote:

Along those lines, I think the most important thing to take on any trip
in a small plane is a fully-charged credit card. It can buy you fuel,
emergency repairs, dinner (or a hotel room) while you wait out weather,
a rental car, or an airline ticket.

Cash. Always accepted. Never refused.

In article , Blanche
wrote:

Cash. Always accepted. Never refused.

Except to rent a car.

Nasir wrote:

How much do you all plan before each x-country? Am I the only slacker?

If I haven't made the trip before, I crank up the computer and use the fuel
finder web site to get me a selection of fuel stops. Then I plug in a few of
these into my flight planning program and pick a route I like. I usually plan
for 2 to 3.5 hour legs. I'll usually plan two scenarios, one of which is a 25
knot headwind. I'll then transfer the route to sectionals. Since this area has
lots of controlled airspace, I will usually have to select waypoints that will
allow me to avoid problem areas, but those are the only waypoints I use or
chart. For example, a flight from New Jersey to Tennessee will start at 3N6. My
first waypoint is N67 (north of Philadelphia). The next is the Linden VOR near
Front Royal, VA. From that point on, it's SHD, ROA, TRI, and my destination at
Knoxville.

I have a LORAN on board and use it for navigation as well as ETA information.
While enroute, I follow my flight on the chart and note visible features as I
pass them. This allows me to double-check the LORAN and would let me continue
the flight by pilotage if the LORAN dies.

When I bought my Maule, it had no radio gear. My technique at that time was to
use closely spaced waypoints at the start of each leg to establish my course.
After the first few miles, however, my waypoints might be 50 miles apart. If I
saw something distinctive on the ground between waypoints, I would try to locate
it on the chart. Sort of the reverse of what they usually teach you to do.

When we brought it back from Georgia, my CFI did the navigation. He used a
similar technique but paid more attention to time than I usually do. He also
used the airways a lot, even though we had no NAV radio. At altitudes of only
a few thousand feet, the VOR transmitters make good landmarks.

George Patterson
Some people think they hear a call to the priesthood when what they really
hear is a tiny voice whispering "It's indoor work with no heavy lifting".

I was pretty rigorous about flight planning for about the first year after
getting my PPL... I am much more willing to start a flight off the GPS then
I was back then. I think the most important thing is situational awareness
- before I'm out of my "comfort zone" where I recognize everything, I will
pop out the sectionals, and tag my last known point every 10 or 15 minutes
just to make sure.

If I'm flying for the first time to a new destination, I will be a little
bit more rigorous - marking the sectional, checking minimum altitudes, etc.
Admittedly, I use 10 GPH on a C172 as my rule of thumb - while I do
generally lean, I also can't guarantee that I am going to do better than
10, and quite frankly, my bladder has yet to last more than 5 hours in a
single leg anyway...

Really, I think weather is the big one... If there's any chance of weather
issues, I will watch it carefully - not only before I leave, but by tuning
in the ATIS/AWOS/ASOS frequencies of airports ahead of me. If there's real
concerns, I will check in with Flight Watch too...

And I ALWAYS get flight following. Quite frankly, I'd rather have FF than a
Flight Plan - if something happens, I think it will provide much more aid,
much more quickly.

Besides that, I generally have a mind flash every 10 or 15 minutes or so to
check for the nearest safe landing spot and figure out what it would take
to get there - whether it be an airport, golf course, field, or highway. Of
course, there are certain areas that I fly over where there are lots of
fields, and it seems like a non-issue, or where it's rocky and hilly, and
also a relative non-issue. So I always try to keep track of the nearest
airport, since it will be easier to deal with an emergency there than on
the 9th Hole...

On the other hand, I have always also tried to keep my skills "honest" -
and fly by hand except on really long trips. And I have recently started my
IFR training to get even better...

But then, just cause I'm a bigger slacker than you are doesn't necessarily
make it right.



"Nasir" wrote in
news
Having received my PPL recently and been on several cross countries, I
was wondering how extensive of a flight plan do people prepare before
the trip?

Do you guys do all the checkpoints on a map, calculate
time/distance/fuel to each leg? Do you just draw the line on the map
and mark checkpoints that you expect to see but not calculate other
things? Do you always calculate winds aloft and fly the appropriate
heading?

I have found myself getting lazy and I dont do all that I did when
planning x-countries when I was training. I tend to draw my line and
mark checkpoints, make sure I have plenty of fuel to get to my
destination (plus an hour more) based on 6gal/hr average. But I dont
calculate time/distance/fuel to each leg. I also have a GPS so that
makes getting lazy easier!

How much do you all plan before each x-country? Am I the only slacker?

Nasir

Jay Honeck wrote:

This is an interesting statement that begs for an explanation. Why do you
like to fly "very low"?

I tend to stay between 500' and 1000' AGL when I'm bucking a headwind, and, as
Jose says, I can be very pretty. Elisabeth got a little upset once when I told
her that a bunch of cows we had just flown over had brown noses, though.

George Patterson
Some people think they hear a call to the priesthood when what they really
hear is a tiny voice whispering "It's indoor work with no heavy lifting".