Who does flight plans?

Flight plans? You betcha! Altho the cherokee is IFR legal, I'm not. So any
trip more than 60 min or so I've got Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, etc. I don't
worry so much about winds but mountains, MOAs, TFRs, etc. are big time
issues out here in the Timezone-Everyone-Forgets-About (mountain). I don't
want to be fiddling with charts and such if something happens.
So I've got the list of airport freqs that I'll be flying over on a sheet
clipped to the yoke. And the charts for any airport that I may
need in an emergency really handy. Much easier to monitor local traffic
that way. It means changing freqs all the time, but that's good practice.
One radio stays tuned to 121.5, of course....

Flight planning with winds, times, fuel, etc? Not really. Since the
body really doesn't like being in the seat more than a couple hours or
so, I'm not worried about that stuff. Hence my flight planning is more
emergency planning rather than flight planning.

And FSS for weather, NOTAMs and TFRs, of course. Unfortunately, the
local newspaper is more current with TFRs and NOTAMs - not official
ones, of course. For example, publicity about VP or Pres trips starts
long before the official TFR is published.

Maule Driver wrote:
AMEN.

I like to think "Whatever floats your boat" when I hear folks talk about
turning off the GPS so as to avoid using it as a crutch.

I'm 100% on my GPS and only track VORs when IMC. I do keep track of
where I am on the map (I tend to use WACs for my 'cleared direct' sojourns)

The nice thing is that GPS complements pilotage very nicely as most of
us flew direct when using pilotage. :-)


Matt

Doug Vetter wrote:


Don Brown indicates that one of the chief reasons they hate pilots who
file direct (even out in the boonies where radio calls are made every
100 miles) is that if a direct courseline quickly crosses or nears
several sector boundaries (which can happen in both the horizontal or
vertical planes), they have to do tons of point outs and (lacking
successful communication with the neighboring controllers) radar
vectors, reroutes, and other hand-holding that would not have been
necessary had the pilot filed airways and avoided those trouble-spots in
the first place.

This is a typical FAA attitude that is very difficult to overcome.
Don't do something that is convenient to you because I then have to work
too hard. Or change what I have been doing for the last 50 years. Busy
airspace is one thing but to say they hate pilots filing direct because
that line nicks other sectors and airspaces is assinine.

Matt Whiting wrote:

The nice thing is that GPS complements pilotage very nicely as most of
us flew direct when using pilotage. :-)

Most of us *tried* to fly direct when using pilotage. :-)

George Patterson
Why do men's hearts beat faster, knees get weak, throats become dry,
and they think irrationally when a woman wears leather clothing?
Because she smells like a new truck.

In article , Peter Duniho wrote:
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.

Dead reckoning is an incredibly important complement to pilotage, and
it's how my in-built (i.e. in-brain) "GPS" gets much better accuracy.
Keep track of time since the last major waypoint or landmark, and it
stops you mis-identifying one ground feature for another, or one airport
for another. It forms a very important cross check when I'm doing
radioless navigation.

--
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"

George Patterson wrote:

Matt Whiting wrote:


The nice thing is that GPS complements pilotage very nicely as most of
us flew direct when using pilotage. :-)


Most of us *tried* to fly direct when using pilotage. :-)

Good point. Now we can really do it!

Matt

Dylan Smith wrote:

In article , Peter Duniho wrote:

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.


Dead reckoning is an incredibly important complement to pilotage, and
it's how my in-built (i.e. in-brain) "GPS" gets much better accuracy.
Keep track of time since the last major waypoint or landmark, and it
stops you mis-identifying one ground feature for another, or one airport
for another. It forms a very important cross check when I'm doing
radioless navigation.


Why do you need dead/ded reckoning when you can see the ground?


Matt

Matt Whiting wrote:
Dylan Smith wrote:
In article , Peter Duniho wrote:

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.


Dead reckoning is an incredibly important complement to pilotage, and
it's how my in-built (i.e. in-brain) "GPS" gets much better accuracy.
Keep track of time since the last major waypoint or landmark, and it
stops you mis-identifying one ground feature for another, or one airport
for another. It forms a very important cross check when I'm doing
radioless navigation.

Why do you need dead/ded reckoning when you can see the ground?

Don't take this wrong way but that's seems like a question from someone
who hasn't really done a lot of pilotage in unknown territory without
backup. Watch the landscape and ignore time and distance, and you will
get stung. Even a rough calc will help keep you out of trouble.

Lesson 1 in pilotage is see the feature, then find it on the map
..... and after you master that along with lessons 2,3,etc
Lesson 10 is complement your pilotage with some rough dead reckoning or
you will end up relearning lesson 1 the hard way.

Does that make any sense?

Matt Whiting wrote:

Why do you need dead/ded reckoning when you can see the ground?

I thought Dylan explained why very well.

George Patterson
Why do men's hearts beat faster, knees get weak, throats become dry,
and they think irrationally when a woman wears leather clothing?
Because she smells like a new truck.

Maule Driver wrote:


Matt Whiting wrote:

Dylan Smith wrote:

In article , Peter Duniho wrote:


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.



Dead reckoning is an incredibly important complement to pilotage, and
it's how my in-built (i.e. in-brain) "GPS" gets much better accuracy.
Keep track of time since the last major waypoint or landmark, and it
stops you mis-identifying one ground feature for another, or one airport
for another. It forms a very important cross check when I'm doing
radioless navigation.

Why do you need dead/ded reckoning when you can see the ground?

Don't take this wrong way but that's seems like a question from someone
who hasn't really done a lot of pilotage in unknown territory without
backup. Watch the landscape and ignore time and distance, and you will
get stung. Even a rough calc will help keep you out of trouble.

Don't take this the wrong way, but talking without thinking can lead to
saying things that don't make sense. I've been flying since 1978 and
use pilotage on almost all flights, including most IFR flights that
aren't in IMC. The biggest determinant of success, other than having
basic map reading skills, is the terrain, not the "unknownness" of the
territory.


Lesson 1 in pilotage is see the feature, then find it on the map
.... and after you master that along with lessons 2,3,etc
Lesson 10 is complement your pilotage with some rough dead reckoning or
you will end up relearning lesson 1 the hard way.

Does that make any sense?

It makes sense of the terrain is all about the same (some areas of the
midwest), but not for where I live. I live in northern PA and flying
mostly in PA, NY, and other states within 500 or so miles of here. I've
never been in an area, other than the urban areas around Philly, NYC,
BWI, etc., where pilotage wasn't rather easy if you are paying attention
at all. We have lots of mountains, valleys, roads, railroads, lakes,
rivers, towers, etc. that make pilotage quite easy without dead
reckoning. Sure, I use it when I need it, but that is very rare where I
fly.


Matt