Do you flight plan?

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