Who does flight plans?

"Greg Farris" wrote in message
...
Many rental companies REQUIRE you to file a flight plan if yoiu're going
more
than 50nm from their base. This is a bit of an inconvenience, as it cuts
your
liberty to fly where you want. I am all for flight plans, flight
following,
continuous radio contact and business-like conduct for most flights, even
VFR
- but when the weather's beautiful, and you're only going 100nm or so, of
route that you know like the back of your hand, it's a bit of a shame not
to
be able to take your time, check something out, show someone who's never
been
up before something special - even land somewhere else if you feel like
it.
Under these conditions, the only use for a flight plan is to assist SAR.
Flight following is just as good - and probably better. This is a kink in
the
rental system today.

You can always cancel your flight plan. Or not open it. (if VFR). The rental
company says you got to file it only .

On Thu, 2 Jun 2005 22:24:29 -0600, "Michael 182"
wrote:

I'm kind of curious - does anyone with more than 100 hours do a flight plan,
with winds and all, before they fly cross country?

In the J-3, in southern New Hampshire and eastern Massachusetts, I
don't file a flight plan. If I'm going around the (White) mountains,
or into Maine or western Massachusetts, I do.

The winds come into it only on DUATS, which is how I create the flight
plan. I don't use an E6B wheel, if that's what you mean. The GPS is
better than the wheel.


-- all the best, Dan Ford

email (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
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the blog: www.danford.net
In Search of Lost Time: www.readingproust.com

Recently, Michael 182 posted:

I'm kind of curious - does anyone with more than 100 hours do a
flight plan, with winds and all, before they fly cross country?

As I see it, the main idea of flight planning is to reduce the workload in
the cockpit. So, for any long XC or a trip to a new location, I plan the
heck out of it. Here in the midwest, the land is flat and can be
undifferentiated for as far as you can see and for quite a while, so
getting lost is not all that difficult. There are also lots of Class C & D
airports, so if you fly for 5 minutes in any direction you'll be in
someone's vicinity, and I like as much information about local traffic as
I can get. There's nothing like discovering a flight of F-15s about to
take off from a Class D airport just as you're approaching it (it
happened!).

To make XC planning easier, I've set up an Exel spreadsheet that goes
beyond the paper form, listing all pertinent info; VOR radials, radio
freqs, headings, bearings, fuel status and so forth for each leg of the
trip. The TAFs are usually good enough to plug in the wind factors ahead
of time, and then headings and fuel consumption for all the waypoints are
calculated automatically. I also mark up the sectional to correspond with
the printed Excel pages, and set up my GPS to correspond with both.
Comparing ETAs with against the GPS becomes a simple task that can be done
without needing a calculator. By doing all this, most of the emergency
landing options are determined ahead of time, and I can focus on what's
going on outside the plane and enjoy the trip.

Neil

"Michael 182" wrote:
I'm kind of curious - does anyone with more than 100 hours do a flight
plan, with winds and all, before they fly cross country?

Yep; every flight.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

Michael 182 wrote:
I'm kind of curious - does anyone with more than 100 hours do a flight plan,
with winds and all, before they fly cross country? Most of my planning is of
the fuel stop, or occasionally detour for weather variety - but it is rare
for me to include more than one or two waypoints in my "plan", and I almost
never file an airway, even when I file ifr. Maybe it's because I live in the
west. A typical flight plan will be Longmont - Amarillo - Austin, or if the
winds are good, Longmont - Austin. What do others do?

Michael

I used to calculate everything manually, and took pride in interpolating
wind / temperature data, and tweaking my climb and descent profiles to
get the total time enroute accurate to a minute or two. That became
boring, so I then concentrated on improving the speed with which I did
all the calculations.

Then my time became money, and I realized that doing it manually no
longer served any purpose (there's only so much you can learn from a
whiz-wheel, or calculating these things manually...particularly after a
few zillion times). Now I let the computers do it and I find that given
the right data, they're accurate to within 1 minute. I don't dig holes
with shovels anymore.

FYI, if you want to plan / file direct VFR, fine. But don't try that
IFR -- particularly in the northeast. It irritates the controllers, and
no surprise. The AIM specifies that you should file airways (sorry I
don't have the exact reference handy...but just read Don Brown's columns
on Avweb for more info). The entire ATC system (airspace boundaries,
etc.) are based on the airway system, and when you file direct, you
increase controller workload. Given the shortage of controllers, that's
just about the last thing you should do.

-Doug

--
--------------------
Doug Vetter, CFIMEIA

http://www.dvcfi.com
--------------------

In article , Michael 182 wrote:
Why? If you are in the air for two hours, and you only have three hours
fuel, get on the ground and refuel. What difference does continually
checking waypoints make?

Well, I'd hardly call checking your progress every 30 to 60 minutes
'continously checking your waypoints', but the difference is it keeps
you more situationally aware, and keeps you in practise in case the
electrical system some day DOES take a dump. It also means you notice a
lot more about the flight, such as ground features, and generally makes
the flight a lot more fun.

My VFR flight planning approach is to draw a line on the chart, mark it
up with mileage points, then keep track of my progress on the same chart
during the flight (by marking my position whenever I notice anything of
interest on the ground, in minutes past the hour). If I then get unsure
of my position, it's trivially easy to find out where you are - it takes
seconds. Once you've navigated this method for a while, it feels like
you have a GPS built into your mind. I've navigated accurately from
coast to coast in the US using this method. It's enormously satisfying.

My day job involves messing with computers. I have a hobby of messing
with computers in my spare time. Flying allows me to get away from all
of that - hence I typically like older planes with the minimum required
electronics (which for me means a transponder and 720 channel COM
radio).

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

I haven't filed a VFR flight plan for a lonnnggggg time. I use Flight
Following
or if I'm current an IFR plan.


"Michael 182" wrote in message
...
I'm kind of curious - does anyone with more than 100 hours do a flight
plan, with winds and all, before they fly cross country? Most of my
planning is of the fuel stop, or occasionally detour for weather variety -
but it is rare for me to include more than one or two waypoints in my
"plan", and I almost never file an airway, even when I file ifr. Maybe
it's because I live in the west. A typical flight plan will be Longmont -
Amarillo - Austin, or if the winds are good, Longmont - Austin. What do
others do?

Michael

I do the same. The closest thing to computerized planning I use
is aeroplanner if I'm away from a map and need a quick idea
of distance/time.


wrote in message
ups.com...
Still do the plans the old fashioned way.
Ruler, map, piece of paper and my E6B.
Most waypoints are about 10NM apart.
The nice thing is that it works every time and that without power or
batteries.
And it is still fun to do.

-Kees

I'm kind of curious - does anyone with more than 100 hours do a flight plan,
with winds and all, before they fly cross country?

Sure. Especially for long, low XCs. I find it very convenient to have
waypoints, frequencies, "things to watch for", and other stuff all laid
out neatly on a sheet of paper in the cockpit.

One of the additional things I add on my sheet is runway layout and FBO
I'm using. I pre-plan that to avoid surprizes like outrageous parking
fees (which would be free across the field) and such.

Jose
--
The price of freedom is... well... freedom.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Not sure whether you are referring to a flight plan with ATC or a the
kind of plan you do to estimate headings, times, and fuel for planning
purposes.

I never file VFR. Often file IFR.

Almost always fly for travel and usually have someone on the other end
curious about when to pick us up. So, I'm always interested in at least
how long it will take to get there. With the winds on ADDS, I love to
plan the optimal altitude for favorable winds. The accuracy is amazing
and the findings sometimes surprising (e.g. headwinds being
substantially less at 8,000 than at 6,000 on a given day). $3.50 fuel
and a slow plane make the exercise valuable on even 1 hour flights.

GPS makes heading calcs unneccessary. Duats provides accurate winds and
dead reckoning flight plans. GPS groundspeed allows detailed wind
soundings during the climb. Again, amazing how accurate ADDS winds are.

Major victory flying Raleigh NC to Tampa FL non-stop both ways last
weekend. Planned IFR both legs with 1 stop. Detailed wind information,
10 mins of cloud flying, range extenders, and a sleeping passenger
allowed non-stoppers of 4.5 and 5 hours (it was worth it).

Michael 182 wrote:
I'm kind of curious - does anyone with more than 100 hours do a flight plan,
with winds and all, before they fly cross country? Most of my planning is of
the fuel stop, or occasionally detour for weather variety - but it is rare
for me to include more than one or two waypoints in my "plan", and I almost
never file an airway, even when I file ifr. Maybe it's because I live in the
west. A typical flight plan will be Longmont - Amarillo - Austin, or if the
winds are good, Longmont - Austin. What do others do?

Michael