Who does flight plans?

[much snippage]

Michael, you seem to place so much emphasis and trust in silicon that it
makes me wonder who's flying the plane. I don't know where you fly and
what the terrain and such is, but in the Northeast, where I fly, there
are plenty of landmarks. I can get up to four or five thousand feet on
a clear day and see the entire sectional laid out before me. (ok I
exaggerate, but just a bit Still I find it not only prudent, but
quite useful to have done a detailled flight plan with waypoints and
ETEs, headings, wind correction (and a little section for winds aloft),
TPAs (yes, there are surprises), FBOs (including fuel price and
availability - saved me hundreds of dollars), frequencies, reminders of
critical areas (towers, parachute and glider areas, restricted and
prohibited areas), MSAs and target altitudes, and all that stuff that
you seem to relegate to student pilot busywork. I have over 800 hours
and still find it is valuable.

Perusing the charts before flight, and copying down the key items in an
easy-to-use format makes all the difference, especially flying a long
cross country at a thousand feet AGL using pilotage and dead reckoning.
(in fact, I'd reccomend this excercise to all pilots)

I don't even use the computer for planning, let alone in the cockpit.
(I will admit I use AirNav to find good fuel prices and locations, but I
plan them on the chart on paper)

The planes I fly have GPS, and though I do turn it on, I do not rely on
it for navigation. Sometimes I turn it to some non-informative page to
ensure that the purple line doesn't seduce me into the Dark Side. All
of this is just part of flying.

I just don't understand the attitude of "the computer will do it for me".

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

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?

I use CTC duats flight planner for pretty much every flight I make. It
is quick, easy and I like to have their flight log to stick on my clipboard.


Matt

"Michael 182" wrote in message
...
No, I guess I overstated it. I do know both mileage and expected flight
time - but usually just for the whole route, not for multiple waypoints
enroute.

Then how do you know what your actual groundspeed is? Oh, right...I
forgot...you trust your GPS completely to tell you this. And of course, you
will never be without your GPS.

[...]
That's ridiculous. I fly 150 kts TAS. Give me the distance to the
destination, and 20 seconds, and I'll tell you the enroute time within
10%. During the weather briefing (which I never skip - I have a lot of
respect for weather) I may adjust that for winds. Once again - easily done
in my head.

Then why did you suggest you don't do that part of the planning? You are
now asserting that you do. I never said the planning should be HARD. I
simply said it should be done.

[...]
So what do you do - the fan stops, and instead of looking out the window
for a landing spot you start referencing your charts. Ridiculous.

That's right, it would be ridiculous to do it that way. I never said I did.
The point is that having properly planned the flight, and properly
navigating along the route of the flight, you know at all times where you're
going to land. If "the fan stops", you simply land where you planned to.

Sectionals give very broad altitude and terrain information.

I guess that depends on your definition of "broad". I find sectionals to be
quite detailed in their depiction of altitude and terrain information
(whatever the difference between the two might be...not sure why you use two
different words to describe basically the same information). Using a
sectional, I can plan a flight through a canyon just a few miles wide, and
be completely assured of terrain avoidance, and of being able to correlate
the chart with the visual recognition of the terrain while enroute.
Sectionals certainly have FAR more detailed terrain elevation data than any
GPS I've seen.

There is no way you will have time during a true emergency to use them or
your preflight planning of emergency landing spots. You will look down,
pick a spot, and follow the emergency checklist.

IMHO, if you are picking the landing spot after the emergency commences, you
have failed in your duty as pilot in command. This is whether you've done
any flight planning or not.

[...]
Which I know by looking out the window. Some things are obvious. I live in
Colorado. I don't fly west over the Rockies in IMC or at night. I avoid
open water. I don't need VFR sectional charts for this stuff. The midwest
is flat. The plains are rolling. The desert is harsh. The mountains are
pointy. Minnesota has trees everywhere. You really don't need a sectional
to know this stuff.

I feel pity for a pilot who thinks those kinds of generalities suffice for
the purpose of understanding the effects of terrain and man-made objects on
the flight.

You need to understand what sort of emergency landing sites are
available. You need to know how the terrain will affect the winds aloft.
You need to know whether you are flying over densely or sparsely
populated areas. You need to know whether your route takes you along a
major highway, or far away from any services.

Once again, I know all this stuff without sectionals.

You can't possibly, not without some other reference that is basically
identical to a sectional.

[...]
I think this is a big difference between us. I don't consider this a
distraction in the air. It is as simple as setting the pitch or mixture. I
do it all the time.

No, it doesn't sound like you do. Not really. There's a big difference
between punching a new airport ID into a GPS, and coming up with a *plan*.
Though, admittedly, in your case perhaps there is no difference, since your
plan never seems to go beyond that anyway.

[...]
You seem to think if I don't have waypoints and sectionals all laid out in
advance I won't know where I am or what my fuel situation is. I know both
all the time when I am in the air. And, as an aside, not that I'd ever let
myself get to that point, but you would be hard pressed to ever be further
than one hour from fuel flying in 90% of the US.

Well, first of all, I already pointed out that you really need to be closer
than one hour to the nearest fuel. But even so, I find myself an hour from
the nearest fuel on a reasonably regular basis. It's not hard, flying
around the west.

Checking waypoints during the flight provides you with nearly fool-proof
(subject only to your own computational skills) information regarding
your fuel status. Yes, other resources provide that information as well,
but cross-checking is always good. Reliance on fewer sources of
information than are available is bad.

Well then, by your reasoning you should be using ded-reckoning (or however
that is spelled) as well.

How so? Dead-reckoning is not nearly as reliable as pilotage. It's
basically a "poor man's intertial navigation system". With pilotage, you
know exactly where you are. All dead-reckoning does is give you a rough
guess as to where you think you might be.

There is NOTHING more reliable than seeing out the window of the airplane
and knowing with 100% certainty how the picture out the window matches the
image on your chart. Nothing.

[...]
Pre-flight planning allows you to contact an FBO on the phone prior to
flight. This is a good thing to do at the very least for a planned fuel
stop, and should probably be done for possible alternates as well. You
can't even do it for the planned fuel stop, unless you actually HAVE a
planned fuel stop before you get into the airplane.

You really do this - you call the FBO to make sure they have fuel before
you take off?

Yes, of course I do. I verify that they have fuel, their hours of
operation, their methods of payment, and if they have pilots on staff around
when I call, I'll even ask about any "local knowledge" that might be useful
to a transient pilot with respect to my arrival and subsequent departure.

It's not even that hard to find stories of pilots who have arrived at an
airport, expecting to take on fuel, only to discover some problem.

Of course, even calling ahead isn't fail-safe. For example, on a recent
flight from Medford, OR to Fort Collins, CO, I stopped for fuel in Idaho. I
had called ahead to make sure they had fuel and were going to be there, but
when I arrived, they had some sort of technical issue with their credit-card
system. We worked something out, but had they known of the problem before I
took off, I probably would have landed somewhere else.

I'm amazed. Never occurred to me. That's like calling a restaurant and
asking them if they have food before you come in for dinner.

It's more like calling a restaurant and asking them if they have food before
you come in for dinner, if you are going to expire from hunger if no food is
available there. In reality, your analogy sucks because a) food is almost
never a critical resource for survival for folks like us, and b) if there's
one restaurant, there is almost always another across the street.

With fuel, especially when flying at the limits of endurance for one's
aircraft, or when flying in very sparsely settled areas such as exist here
in the west, you may only get one chance for fuel, especially if you apply
the kind of "planning" to your flight that you apparently do.

[...]
How do you know the navigation was accurate, unless you were
cross-checking?

I never said I don't cross check the navigation aids. I said I don't plan
the waypoints on the ground. I fly over a town, I'll dial in the GPS and
see what town it is.

How do you know the GPS is telling you the correct information?

I can cross check highways, rivers, airports, runways, VORs, NDBs,
intersections. All easily done in the air.

Again, how do you know the GPS is telling you the correct information?

In any case, your argument relies heavily on the Garmin 430 GPS you have
installed. Your original question said NOTHING about the kind of equipment
one might be using, and as common as GPS is becoming, nice moving map GPS
receivers such as the 430 are hardly ubiquitous.

Even if I had a 430 in my plane, I would plan my flights with more detail
than you do. But I hardly think it's useful for you to equivocate on your
original question by bringing in new elements to it. If you had asked "does
anyone with a 430 still plan their flights?" I would not have even bothered
to answer.

Pete

"Jose" wrote in message
. com...
[much snippage]

Michael, you seem to place so much emphasis and trust in silicon that it
makes me wonder who's flying the plane.

Why? If I had a decent autopilot, rather than the Cessna wing-leveler I have
I'd use that extensively as well. I'm flying the plane - I'm just using
technology to assist me.


I don't even use the computer for planning, let alone in the cockpit. (I
will admit I use AirNav to find good fuel prices and locations, but I plan
them on the chart on paper)

The planes I fly have GPS, and though I do turn it on, I do not rely on it
for navigation. Sometimes I turn it to some non-informative page to
ensure that the purple line doesn't seduce me into the Dark Side. All of
this is just part of flying.

I just don't understand the attitude of "the computer will do it for me".

Because, it appears you get enjoyment from the charting and pilotage. Very
cool. I don't. In fact, in my TR-182, my flying is pretty much
transportation or currency flying. I don't fly for the "joy of flying". Now
maybe if I bought a Cub that would change, as would my approach to cross
countries. I am considering a glider license (I looked into paragliding, but
comments on this board and from fellow pilots turned me off) because I would
like to recapture some of that "wonder and awe" I had when I first started
flying. But pilotage and charts don't do it for me.

So, with regard to "I just don't understand the attitude of the computer
will do it for me", my response is I just don't understand the reluctance to
accept that computers are far superior to human skills at a great multitude
of what we try to cogitate. Not using them because it is more fun for you
makes a lot of sense. Not using them in the (I believe) mistaken belief that
it makes you a safer pilot doesn't fly with me. (pun weak, but intended...)

Michael

So, with regard to "I just don't understand the attitude of the computer
will do it for me", my response is I just don't understand the reluctance to
accept that computers are far superior to human skills at a great multitude
of what we try to cogitate.

Maybe it's because I've been around computers and computer programmers.

The more you rely on others (be they people or machines), the more your
own skills will silently erode, and the one time when you need them, you
may find it to be more exciting than you had ... er... planned.

If I had a decent autopilot, rather than the Cessna wing-leveler I have
I'd use that extensively as well. I'm flying the plane - I'm just using
technology to assist me.

I have an autopilot in the club planes I fly. I feel so out of the loop
when I use it that I almost never do. It's just so natural (at least
for me) to have my hand on the yoke that I don't even notice. And that
way, if my skills start to deteriorate, I notice it right away. With an
autopilot doing the flying and the navigating, I wouldn't.

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

On Thu, 2 Jun 2005 23:01:36 -0600, Michael 182 wrote:

I thought you had to have a navigation aid in your suffix to file direct -
like /G or /R. Aren't you setting yourself up for a problem filing /A and
direct?

Hi Michael,

So far, I have had no problems. Probably, location has a lot to do with
it, as I have always received "cleared as filed".

Unless you are flying Longmont to Colorado Springs and looking down on the
I-25 parking lot...

Yeah, I'd imagine that you have more on that I-25 parking lot, then we have
in the state of Mississippi :-)

Rush hour here means speeds slow down from 90 mph down to the speed limit
of 60 mph.

Allen

"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?


Every flight, though they typically average about 350nm.

Loaded in FliteStar, it gives me all the weather, NOTAMS, forecasts,
winds,etc. I give it waypoints and legs then it creates worksheets/reports
that I can print out which go into a manila folder. On returns, I load it
into the laptop and have a portable color printer to print for carry-along.

Takes all of ten minutes.


--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...


Using a sectional, I can plan a flight through a canyon just a few miles
wide, and be completely assured of terrain avoidance, and of being able to
correlate the chart with the visual recognition of the terrain while
enroute.

Hmm - maybe this is some of the difference. I don't fly through canyons. In
fact, I usually fly between 15,000 feet and FL 200. When I fly over canyons
I'm looking at emergency landing spots far to either side of them. Maybe
this accounts for some of the difference in our approach.


I feel pity for a pilot who thinks those kinds of generalities suffice for
the purpose of understanding the effects of terrain and man-made objects
on the flight.

Well, always nice to be pitied...



Even if I had a 430 in my plane, I would plan my flights with more detail
than you do. But I hardly think it's useful for you to equivocate on your
original question by bringing in new elements to it. If you had asked
"does anyone with a 430 still plan their flights?" I would not have even
bothered to answer.

Sorry to waste your time. In fact, since I did mention the 430 about four
posts back, one wonders why you did continue to respond. In any case, I
appreciate it - you have some interesting points. I don't agree with them,
but they are interesting.

Michael

our local flight school rental agency requires flight plans on file with
them for any cross country outside the immediate valley.. DUATS is great for
that.. make two printouts.

BT

"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 make three- and four-hour hops over the Rockies and Sierra, usually over
familiar routes. I check winds aloft carefully beforehand and have in mind
three or four different passes I can use in case of mountain obscuration. I
always file a VFR flightplan and talk to Flight Watch often -- radar
coverage for flight following is spotty at my altitudes, 10,500 to 13,500,
sometimes higher to take advantage of a tailwind. Biggest issue after
weather is restricted airspace and TFRs --

Seth
Comanche N8100R

"BTIZ" wrote in message
news:_V7oe.202$xr.199@fed1read05...
our local flight school rental agency requires flight plans on file with
them for any cross country outside the immediate valley.. DUATS is great
for that.. make two printouts.

BT

"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