On Mon, 8 Dec 2003 09:33:21 -0500, "Dennis O'Connor"
wrote:

Like Dennis, I take a rather relaxed approach to flight planning, be
it VFR or IFR. That is not to say I skip any thing important, but I
check out the *initially* planned route and take a look at the weather
for the full route. Generally I do watch the weather enough to know
the trends. (The Weather Channel is the most watched channel in our
house)

Well, a cross country is just a series of one hour flights strung end to
end... To go for a one hour flight I simply check the weather and notams,
and if there are no show stoppers we get into the plane and launch in the
general direction of where we want to be... To go from one end of the
country to the other, I do exactly the same - wx / notams / fuel / go...

IE...be flexible. Like battle plans, it's a rare one that survives
the first encounter with the enemy. I don't think I've flown a long
cross county yet where I didn't have to detour a bit and often by
quite a bit. I'm not at all hesitant to swing 300 or more miles to
one side or the other to avoid something (weather, TFRs...what ever)

Fuel stops are usually not preplanned, about two and a half hours out I
start looking ahead an hour for the fuel stop... I try to go to a different
airport for fuel on every trip even if it is the twentieth time I've flown
the route.. I do avoid the jet ports simply because they have high fuel
prices, though...

My fuels stops are kinda, sorta planned. I want an hours worth in the
tanks when I set down. As soon as I reach my assigned altitude and
have a stabilized cruise I can almost pick where I will need to stop
with my comfort factor with just a glance at the GPS. The same would
be true from watching the scenery. I do not use formal check points,
but I know where I am and how far this town is from that town and it
looks like I may have about a 40 knot head wind...I think accordingly.
If you fly the same airplane all the time you start thinking in terms
of no wind distance and adjust accordingly for real world conditions..
You won't even need a calculator.


The Howie Keith Charts are the easiest I've found and I have used them off
and on for decades... The GPS195 keeps me from blundering into controlled /
restricted airspace, and the airport database makes it easy to look an hour
ahead for an airport with fuel.. Out west where the airports are further
apart I do a smidgen more preplanning on the fuel stop, but that's all...

So, my flight planning is the absolute minimum possible in todays
airspace... The reality over most of the country is that you are within ten
minutes of an airport... Relax and look at this beautiful country instead of
sweating over check points and being exactly on time with your flight
plan...

I do carry both VFR and IFR charts. I have the one handy for where
ever I happen to be located. I normally don't fly airways in the mid
west and even most of the area to the east of the Rockies (if I'm high
enough) Most of the time I pick a nav aid, or airport in each ATC
area and go direct from one to the next. When I do fly airways I find
that I can expect to be diverted off airways when in or near busy
areas and end up with vectors, or "direct when able" so some nav aid.
Typically I can at that point request direct to something even more
direct.

Like Dennis, "I think" a lot of the flight planning we do is mental.
We know our planes well. We know the fuel burn very well. Even with
two engines on "Fat Albert" I think it and the Deb are pretty close in
fuel consumption.

In any case, we've gone through all the fine points of detailed flight
planning and enjoy plain old fashioned pilotage. OTOH we can file and
go on days where we'd otherwise have to stay on the ground. Still,
there are many days up here in the north where we are still ground
bound due to ice, thunderstorms, or wind.

Roger (K8RI)


Denny


"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:r4SAb.459877$Tr4.1276545@attbi_s03...
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?

Last spring we flew from Iowa to Florida, with a stop in Alabama, with
less
formal flight planning then when I prepared for my first few 50-mile
student
cross country flights.

We subscribe to Aeroplanner, an on-line flight planning service, and
create
Sectional Chart "Trip Tiks" in .pdf format upon request, printing them on
my
color laser printer at work. This pretty much wraps up our "flight
planning" in the traditional sense, except for programming everything into
our AvMap GPS. Aeroplanner literally does everything for you, including
drawing the line on the charts, right down to the 10 nm "ticks"... (It
also
creates sectionals on 8.5 x 11 inch sheets, in flip-chart form, so you
don't
have the "octopus arms" of charts in the cockpit.)

That said, it's the weather prep that really matters on a long cross
country
flight -- and, if anything, this has gotten MORE extensive over the years.
For several days before a flight, we'll study the weather patterns on The
Weather Channel. I'll get a really thorough outlook briefing the night
before a flight, and then a standard weather briefing the morning of the
flight.

I'll virtually live on ADDS and a host of other weather websites, tracking
the METARS and TAFS along our route of flight. I'll try to be aware of
trends and anomalies in the weather pattern. If they're predicting crap
weather the day before a flight, and it's sunny, I'll be very aware that
the
NWS has no clue what's happening.

Finally, for vacations we always plan at least three flights. If the
weather is socked in to the North, we'll choose our "Southern Option". If
it looks bad that way, too, we'll choose our Western Option. We always
leave our options open, and we always leave at least one "contingency day"
in our flight plans.

This procedure has worked well for almost ten years, and almost 900 hours.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"
"Nasir" wrote in message
news

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






Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair?)
www.rogerhalstead.com
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