"Michael 182" wrote in message
...
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. snip 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.

I agree, I just don't actively plan for this.

I'm not sure what you mean by "I just don't actively plan for this". Are
you saying that you regularly make flights where you don't actually know the
mileage or expected time enroute for the flight prior to takeoff?

I usually take off with a full tank. I have a Shadin to measure fuel flow,
which I know from experience is very accurate.

I do have a fuel flow meter as well. It's very nice to have, but it only
gives me information after the fact.

Since I also have a Garmin 430 I know, pretty accutaely, my time to
destination.

Not until you're in the airplane. Seems like, unless you have in-flight
refueling capabilities, it would be better to have that information earlier.

I have a backup Pilot III in the glove box if I need it.

Assuming whatever caused the 430 to fail doesn't also cause the Pilot III to
fail. And assuming that the Pilot III doesn't suffer its own independent
failure.

If all of this fails (a very low probability - never happened in over 1200
hours in this plane), I can tune in VORs, figure out where I am, and find
an airport.

VORs only help if they work. The same electrical failure that could knock
out your 430 would disable your VOR receivers, I assume. In any case, I
don't feel that in-flight is the best time to be "figuring out" where you
are. It's MUCH better to already know where you are, and know what your
available options are.

In the event that things start going wrong in-flight, I would much rather
spend my limited attention flying the airplane and dealing with the
situation, than to waste time doing work that could have been done on the
ground, or as the flight progressed.

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.

I never go below 1.5 hours in reserve. All of this can easily be handled
in flight, with very minimal ground planning.

All of what? The statement you quoted pertains only to something that has
to be done in flight. I would argue that not only can it easily be handled
in flight, it can ONLY be handled in flight. But you can't do the
cross-check unless you have something to cross-check against, and that
requires preflight action.

It sounds to me as though you basically top off the tanks, enter your
destination in your GPS, and as you fly compare your ETE with your fuel-flow
meter's report of time left (assuming it even has that function...not all
do), and as long as your ETE doesn't go past your time left on the fuel-flow
meter, you consider that good. If for some reason the ETE shows you past
your fuel endurance, you then start planning for an arrival somewhere else
while enroute.

IMHO, that's very sloppy "planning", and simply doesn't prepare you for the
possibilities of what can happen during a flight. The cockpit is a pretty
lousy environment for a variety of things, and flight planning is one of
those things. You certainly should be able to do flight planning while
enroute, but to intentionally put yourself in a position where that's
assured, that's just lazy and dangerous.

Come on, you plan for emergency landing spots on a long cross country? No
way - you might generally say "I'm not flying across the Rockies in IMC,
but beyond that, how can you plan for emergency landing spots?

How can you NOT? I know what my approximate glide performance is. I know
what altitude I'm planning to cruise. When planning my route, I inspect the
entire route for reasonable assurance that there are suitable emergency
landing sites along the route. I may not know the exact lat/long of where
I'll land should the engine fail, but I have a very good idea of the
topography in any given area of the flight, and roughly what direction turn
will likely be required at any given point along the flight.

Sometimes the route simply cannot be done with reasonably assurance of safe
landing sites, which is what I described as "hostile terrain" in a previous
post. It doesn't mean I won't fly over those areas, necessarily, but it
does mean I take extra precautions and I at least am aware of the section(s)
of the route that will require even greater vigilance with respect to engine
monitoring and careful identification of even the most marginal-but-doable
emergency landing site (you'd be surprised at what can be found even in
hostile terrain, if you're looking for it).

In any case, I'm generally just buying IFR charts - I have no idea of the
terrain beyond some general altitude information.

Dumb. Dumb. DUMB!

Sorry, but you asked the question, and I think it's absurd that anyone would
fly over ground that they have no idea what it looks like. If you're flying
a jet with glide performance of 100-200 miles, and little chance of landing
off-airport successfully no matter how friendly the terrain, that's one
thing. But anyone in a light piston aircraft needs to know what the ground
is like along their route.

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.

There's just too much information available from VFR charts for any pilot
with any sense of self-preservation and who takes the charge of "pilot in
command" seriously to ignore that information.

Once again, all of this is easily done in the air. ... Hmmm, I'm hungry.
What airports are within 50 miles? Oh yeah - there's one. Do they have a
restaurant? (Open the Flight Guide... ) "Albuquerque Center, Skylane 123
is changing my destination and landing at Santa Fe..."

It's MORE easily done on the ground. That's what the whole concept of
"planning" is all about. By planning ahead, you make the in-flight decision
making vastly simpler. You'll never eliminate the possibility of having to
make up an entirely new plan in the air, but by having considered likely
disruptions to the flight, you avoid distractions during the flight.

Don't forget, many aircraft accidents happened only because the pilot was
distracted from the duty of controlling the aircraft. Anything you can do
to minimize the distractions while flying the aircraft, you should. This
definitely includes proper and thorough pre-flight planning.

Why? If you are in the air for two hours, and you only have three hours
fuel, get on the ground and refuel. What difference does continually
checking waypoints make?

Well, for one...by the time you realize you only have an hour of fuel left,
you may not be within an hour of an airport that has fuel available. Duh.

Even if you are within an hour, do you really want to come floating in on
fumes? I know I don't, which means I need an airport even closer than that.
The closer the airport needs the be, the greater the chance it won't be
close enough when you finally figure out you need fuel.

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.

Don't forget that in the cockpit, with your fuel running low, is a pretty
bad time to be calling up an FBO on the radio and asking them if they
actually have fuel. This assumes the FBO even has a Unicom frequency or
similar, and that you can contact them from your position.

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.

I do double check it occasionally, out of boredom on some flights - but
how can it "theoretically go wrong without you knowing"?

Well, for one, there might be some flaw in the RAIM feature.

I know about RAIM errors - they have totaled maybe 5 minutes in the past
four years of flying, and even during the errors the navigation was
accurate.

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

But, once again, even if the GPS miraculously failed, and the hand held
backup failed, and the VOR's (both of them) failed, and the radio died (so
I couldn't get vectors) - I rarely fly more than 30 minutes anywhere in
the US without seeing an airport, or at least a private ranch strip.

So your plan is to just keep heading in a specific direction until you see
an airport? That's not much of a plan, IMHO.

I don't want to sound cavalier about flying. I am fanatical about
maintenance on my plane. I will do extensive planning for a go-no go
decision based on weather. I get an IPC at least once a year, even if I am
current. But it seems to me that for a reasonably high performance plane
the geography of planning has, for the most part, been displaced by
technology.

IMHO, those who put too much trust in technology are making unnecessary
risks. The one thing that technology has demonstrated itself to be is
always flawed. No matter how reliable humans believe they have made
technology, there are always ways for things to go wrong. Given that
there's very little downside in additional pre-flight planning, and lots of
potential upside, it boggles my mind that there are pilots out there who
don't take the pre-flight planning more seriously.

Ironically, I replied to this thread thinking that I'm a slacker compared to
many pilots, not taking my pre-flight planning seriously enough. It's clear
to me though, after considering all of the things I still do during my
pre-flight planning (in spite of the fact that it probably wouldn't pass
muster with a DE), there are folks out there who are completely abdicating
their responsibility as pilot in command to ensure the safety of the flight,
and instead trusting that responsibility to a small pile of silicon.

Pete