solo x/c for commercial

Okay, I've decided to start on my commercial, and after looking at
61.129 I have painfully accepted the fact that the 300nm cross country
really needs to be vfr, solo. That means long trips I've done on
instrument flight plans (imc or vmc) won't cut it, and more painfully,
long trips I've done with my girlfriend and climbing buddies (non pilot
passengers) are also not acceptable.

I really have to fly somewhere 250nm away and back again, being sure to
stop somewhere on the way home.

It is so tempting to go into a rant about the pointlessness of this reg
as written, but I'm going to limit myself to just stating that,
generally, I prefer to fly with friends, because it's just more fun (in
the plane and at the destination) and, well, more cost-effective. And
my logbook shows this dearth of truly solo post-private time. I
sometimes go up just to tool around and practice maneuvers on my own,
but I just haven't done much x/c flying that way.

No matter.

I want to make this trip as interesting and educational as possible.
I'm looking for ideas to spice up a several hours in cruise. Games to
practice my dead reckoning?

What do you guys do to make sure every flight is a learning experience?
(aside from "I learned about flying from that" stories, which I'd
prefer to read about rather than re-enact.)

Ideas?

-- dave j
-- jacobowitz73 --at-- yahoo --dot-- com

wrote in message
oups.com...
[...]
What do you guys do to make sure every flight is a learning experience?
(aside from "I learned about flying from that" stories, which I'd
prefer to read about rather than re-enact.)

Personally, I don't go out of my way to "make sure every flight is a
learning experience". Many flights are, of course. But every flight should
be planned with the goal of the flight taking place exactly as planned,
without any surprises. And then you should actually fly the flight as if
nothing will go according to plan, so that you are always ready to fix the
plan to accomodate the new situation.

Now, that said, you have a very specific flight in mind, and I think it's
reasonable to look for ways to make it more interesting. I don't think it's
rocket science though. You can probably come up with most, if not all, of
the various ways yourself.

Some strategies that might be helpful:

* Make one of your landings at an airport that appears to be especially
hard to find. Of course, they all look easy on the chart, but a short
runway (not shorter than you can safely manage, of course) is often more
difficult, as are airports without lots of services or based aircraft
(airports are harder to find if there aren't a bunch of airplanes sitting
around on the ground ).

* Route your flight through various kinds of airspace requiring contact
with ATC. Use VFR flight following. Use a VFR flight plan.

* Challenge yourself to use the available weather information to verify
and/or correct the winds aloft forecast. For extra credit, use this
information along with your suggestion of doing some dead reckoning. See
how close to the mark you get.

* Practice your pilotage. Dead reckoning is fine, but for VFR flight
pilotage is where it's at. It's something you can use on every single
flight if you want to, and it is lots of fun.

* Actually get out at one of your stops. Try to get a meal. Fill up
the airplane's gas tanks. You may have already done this many times, but
personally I have found that the elements of flight between takeoff and
landing tend to be very similar. It's when you get to your destination that
every trip is different. For extra credit, see how close to your actual
fuel burn you can get with your calculations.

* Find a place to land that's unusual, even beyond being hard to find.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, Copalis Beach (a "runway" on the sand) is a
new experience for many. Near Los Angeles, landing on Catalina Island can
be a fun, but reasonably safe challenge (though, I haven't heard a report on
the pavement conditions in awhile). I don't know where your flight is
likely to take you, but surely there's an airport or two around that is
particularly unusual, even beyond some specific dimensional characteristic.

Most of all, just have fun. Frankly, while I can definitely relate to the
"having friends along is more fun", I think you're missing out if you don't
do a good long flight solo once in awhile. For me, it's about as far as I
can get from the real world. I have the whole plane to myself. No one is
expecting me to chat with them. The headsets keep the airplane noise down,
and otherwise my experience is completely silent. Obviously this works
better if you don't have to talk to ATC, but I've found that especially for
VFR flights, the occasional need to talk on the radio doesn't negate the
great "wakeful meditation" that solo flight provides.

Beyond any suggestion for making the flight more challenging or interesting,
simply take advantage of this rare opportunity to experience flight in a
completely new way. A way that you are not accustomed to experiencing,
since you always work so hard to bring someone else along. It's not bad.
It's just different.

Pete

Okay, I've decided to start on my commercial, and after looking at
61.129 I have painfully accepted the fact that the 300nm cross country
really needs to be vfr, solo

Are you sure it has to be VFR? Assuming you have 61.129(a)(2)(iii), the PIC
100nm VFR XC covered, 61.129(a)(4)(i), the 300nm solo XC doesn't seem to say
anything about VFR.

I agree though, that the definition of solo for the purposes of this
requirement should be broadened to include flights with non-pilot
passengers.

- Ray

Pick a place you've never been before and just enjoy the ride.
Every flight can be a learning experience if you want it to be.

On 24 May 2005 23:09:01 -0700, wrote:


Okay, I've decided to start on my commercial, and after looking at
61.129 I have painfully accepted the fact that the 300nm cross country
really needs to be vfr, solo. That means long trips I've done on
instrument flight plans (imc or vmc) won't cut it, and more painfully,
long trips I've done with my girlfriend and climbing buddies (non pilot
passengers) are also not acceptable.

Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but I don't read 61.129(a)(4)(i) as
specifying the flight conditions, just the distance and that it has to
be solo. The VFR notations are with the dual day/night flights.

What's confused me about 61.129(a)(4) is that it says "solo flight in
the areas of operation listed in 61.127(b)(1)". Is this something
like the PPL where you have to get an instructor to sign off on it to
prove it was done within 61.127(b)(1), still wiping out any flights
done previously from consideration?

Do you write in your log book when you have passengers? When I did mine
(admittedly a
lonnnng time ago) I took a couple friends and we made a day of it. I believe
it was 250nm
legs back then .. 3 of them. Stopped at both places and did stuff. The
flight school was
aware that 2 people were going with me and never said a thing. Did the
requirements
change since the 70s?





wrote in message
oups.com...

Okay, I've decided to start on my commercial, and after looking at
61.129 I have painfully accepted the fact that the 300nm cross country
really needs to be vfr, solo. That means long trips I've done on
instrument flight plans (imc or vmc) won't cut it, and more painfully,
long trips I've done with my girlfriend and climbing buddies (non pilot
passengers) are also not acceptable.

I really have to fly somewhere 250nm away and back again, being sure to
stop somewhere on the way home.

It is so tempting to go into a rant about the pointlessness of this reg
as written, but I'm going to limit myself to just stating that,
generally, I prefer to fly with friends, because it's just more fun (in
the plane and at the destination) and, well, more cost-effective. And
my logbook shows this dearth of truly solo post-private time. I
sometimes go up just to tool around and practice maneuvers on my own,
but I just haven't done much x/c flying that way.

No matter.

I want to make this trip as interesting and educational as possible.
I'm looking for ideas to spice up a several hours in cruise. Games to
practice my dead reckoning?

What do you guys do to make sure every flight is a learning experience?
(aside from "I learned about flying from that" stories, which I'd
prefer to read about rather than re-enact.)

Ideas?

-- dave j
-- jacobowitz73 --at-- yahoo --dot-- com

wrote in message
oups.com...

Okay, I've decided to start on my commercial, and after looking at
61.129 I have painfully accepted the fact that the 300nm cross country
really needs to be vfr, solo. That means long trips I've done on
instrument flight plans (imc or vmc) won't cut it, and more painfully,
long trips I've done with my girlfriend and climbing buddies (non pilot
passengers) are also not acceptable.

I really have to fly somewhere 250nm away and back again, being sure to
stop somewhere on the way home.

It is so tempting to go into a rant about the pointlessness of this reg
as written, but I'm going to limit myself to just stating that,
generally, I prefer to fly with friends, because it's just more fun (in
the plane and at the destination) and, well, more cost-effective. And
my logbook shows this dearth of truly solo post-private time. I
sometimes go up just to tool around and practice maneuvers on my own,
but I just haven't done much x/c flying that way.

No matter.

I want to make this trip as interesting and educational as possible.
I'm looking for ideas to spice up a several hours in cruise. Games to
practice my dead reckoning?

What do you guys do to make sure every flight is a learning experience?
(aside from "I learned about flying from that" stories, which I'd
prefer to read about rather than re-enact.)

Ideas?

-- dave j
-- jacobowitz73 --at-- yahoo --dot-- com


I took my dog to soak in the hot springs near Mammoth, CA and then we went
to Harris Ranch for a steak.

Mike
MU-2

Fly low. Very low. The whole time. With no GPS. This will challenge
your pilotage, dead reckoning, and flight planning abilities (and such a
flight =must= be planned well!). Down low you won't see all that far,
and many of the landmarks you'd count on from a few thousand feet up
will be beyond the horizon. You'll need to hold a course with very good
precision, recognize and utilize landmarks of a totally different scale,
and keep your eyes out for towers and such. After three hours at five
hundred feet (a thousand if you're over towns), it's a nice feeling to
see the destination appear right in front of you, exactly where it belongs.

Of course, don't fly unsafely low; you need to take the hazards poking
up from the ground into account. You also need to consider the risks of
an engine failure into account. But the skills gained in navigation and
aviation this close to the ground may save your life one day. Besides,
it's real pretty.

Jose
--
The price of freedom is... well... freedom.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Everyone, thanks for the great suggestions! What I was looking for was
an attitude adjustment so I could look forward to this flight, and you
guys have helped provide it. I've fallen into the habit of thining of
the plane as a tool and I've even gotten in the habit of thinking in
terms of nm per dollar rather than knots. Not good.

A few notes:
Thanks for the clarification on 61.129(a)(4)(i). It does not say it
has to be VFR. 61.129(a)(4)(ii) does, however, so the 10 hours at night
can't be under IFR. The regulation is...interesting. I had one
instructor that was fond of saying night flying is instrument flying,
regardless of the rules you fly under. I usually think of it that way.

Also, I do almost always log (in addition to the weather, kind of
approach used, etc) who came with me on a trip in my logbook, what we
did, etc. I use my logbook as a little bit of a history of my life. You
can tell who I've dated from the past five years from it. It may be
good idea to stop using it that way, split that stuff out, and make my
official logbook clean.

FYI . I'm starting in Palo Alto, CA. I was thinking of heading to the
Oregon boder and back. Never been up there before.

Finally, I should get a dog.

-- dave j

wrote in message

I really have to fly somewhere 250nm away and back again,

What do you guys do to make sure every flight is a learning experience?

sigh
reminds me of a young professional couple I took to the airport not long ago
embarking on a 1 week vacation. Says wife to husband "I've got at least one
block of relaxation time scheduled in each day........." Sheesh.

turn off the gps. fly low and look at the scenery. look at the clouds and
try to imagine them as structures. what are they? when I ferried cessnas,
i used to toss the chart on the ack seat and just fly in the (sorta) right
general direction for about 2.5 to 3 hours looking at everything and
nothing, sometimes heading over here or there if it looked interesting, then
pick up the chart, figure out where I am and where I might find some gas.
where you find gas out in the boonies, you'll also find interesting folks
and as often as not some dyn-o-mite food. life unstructured will often teach
you things missed by the official syllabus.