Always always have a flight plan! You leave the house and tell someone
where you are going and approximately how long it should take, give
others the same courtesy when you are in the air, or just at the
airport flying hangers or Pearl Harbor Day.

GPS is quite accurate, however it is not the be all, end all of
avionics. Use your checkpoints and check them with your clock, fuel
burns can vary quite a bit during the winter in a piston aircraft.

Have a great one!

Bush

" You've got a map, a clock, a compass and a a pencil, you ought to
be able to keep your course"!

"Ceiling Zero" Starring Pat O'Brian, 1935


On Sun, 07 Dec 2003 23:42:27 GMT, "Nasir"
wrote:

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