"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? [...]

I'm well past 100 hours. For me, it just depends, but it appears I always
plan with more detail than you do.

I always plan at least a basic route for total mileage, adjust my cruise
speed for the winds to get total time and thus fuel burn. I don't correct
individual legs for winds; I just look at the worst-case scenario and use
that as my cruise speed for the entire trip. Winds aloft can vary so much
from the forecast anyway that it's pointless to try to include them with any
greater detail than that. I always carry at least an hour of fuel in
reserve, and on shorter flights (two or three hours or so) it can be more
than that.

It's MUCH more important to then cross-check your expected fuel burn and ETA
with what transpires during the flight, since the winds can change at any
time anyway. The initial planning is just so you have some idea of whether
the flight can be done with the fuel on board, and generally how long you
can expect to be in the airplane.

I find it funny that your question uses the phrase "with winds and all", as
if the winds are the most important element of the flight plan. They are,
IMHO, the least important during planning (though they become very important
during flight). The "and all" includes a bunch of much more important
things.

For routes that I'm not familiar with, I do more detailed planning. This
includes, of course, noting airspaces, landmarks for waypoints and general
navigation purposes, terrain for inclusion in cruise altitude
decision-making, possible emergency landing sites, etc. The "this is what
will happen" goal is to find an efficient route from Point A to Point B,
while either avoiding or anticipating any impediments along the way. The
"this is what might happen" goal is to identify various things that
shouldn't happen, but which might anyway, and develop strategies for dealing
with them. Knowing where one might land if the headwind is greater than
expected, adjusting the route for friendlier emergency landing sites (if
possible), identifying alternate airports in case of things like the
original destination being closed, equipment trouble, emergency bathroom
break, etc. (yes, there's overlap in those various criteria...but it's not
always the same overlap).

One thing I'm surprised at is that you include only one or two waypoints in
your plan. Perhaps you are flying the same routes over and over again, in
which case I can understand that. But I only neglect waypoints like that
for routes where I am completely familiar with the terrain along and around
the entire route. For any route I haven't flown repeatedly and recently, I
like to know some good waypoints that I'll pass every 10 to 15 minutes.
Note that this is also true for the familiar routes, it's just that I've got
those waypoints memorized in that case (and I know roughly what time during
the flight I should expect to see them).

I have a reasonably reliable Loran in my airplane, and so I admit I do slack
a bit on the groundspeed calculations while enroute. However, I need to
have the waypoints for backup in case the Loran goes south, and even with
the Loran, on longer flights I am still double-checking my groundspeed with
waypoints every 30-60 minutes. In addition, the Loran is much better with
groundspeed than it is with absolute position, and I'm not always flying a
route for which the Loran has waypoints along my route in its database
anyway. So I need the waypoints for off-airway navigation (both "where" and
"when").

Note that having a Loran (or even IFR-certified GPS) doesn't obviate the
need for proper planning. Even if the equipment was 100% reliable, you
still need to actually inspect the route for the details along the way, to
avoid obstacles and so that you can double-check your navigation equipment
(even the GPS, which is supposed to tell you when it's lying, can
theoretically go wrong without you knowing...you don't want to be the first
pilot that happens to, and not know it when it's happening ). But on top
of all that, you need a backup plan in case you lose your nav equipment for
any reason (electronics get fried, electrical failure, bird hits your
antenna, whatever).

I readily admit to not filling out a full "flight log", and definitely
abbreviating my planning from what's typically required for FAA testing.
But much of the same detail needs to go into the actual planning, IMHO, even
if it doesn't get written down.

As for the computerized planning, well...probably if I didn't spend so much
time with computers already, I'd be all over that. But my life already
revolves around them as it is. Much of my enjoyment of flying comes from
the somewhat anachronistic aspects of it, and I actually like spreading the
charts out on the floor and measuring distances with my plotter. It does
take longer, that's for sure. But for me, it's all part of the whole
experience.

Pete