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?

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

"Nasir" wrote in message
news
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?

For any cross country longer than abut 75 miles, I do a lot of planning.
But then us old geezers tend to be less bold as the years go by.

Even my flight instructor told me I would never plan flights the way I did as a
student. We've gone out with nary more than a weather briefing for the general
area we think we are going to, but that's more boring holes in the sky rather
than flying somewhere specific. The GPS makes it very easy to get very lazy so
always make sure you know where you are on the chart also in case you lose the
GPS. If you have an intended landing point you should check the notams enroute
and for the airport you are going to. After you start taking long cross
countries you find out that you often end up at some other airport anyway due to
weather, bathrooms, hunger, etc. I never planned fuel out to the last ounce
because I know in the old clunkers I fly they aren't anywhere near the book. I
told the DE that during the oral and she just smiled and said "besides we both
know private pilots don't know how to lean". I think I passed the ride right
then. In my plane we can burn anywhere from 10 to 14 depending on how we fly
it. I always plan 14, plus and hour reserve. I keep the baggage tank full as
ballast unless I have lots of luggage. I always have at least 20 gals when I
land.

Margy

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

In article ,
"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?

There's really only two important questions for the vast majority of
flights most private pilots take:

1) Am I going to run into any weather I can't handle?

2) Am I going to have enough fuel to get there? Corellary: can I buy
fuel there, or do I need to plan on enough to get back too?

There are other things to answer, but those are the big ones. Everything
else you do is to make sure you can answer those two questions.

I certainly see no reason to slog over computing wind correction angles
and groundspeed for each individual leg by hand. Let a computer crunch
the numbers for you. I use the feee planner available on DUATs, but
there's lots of alternatives to pick from.

You certainly want to look at a chart and make sure your proposed route
makes sense. Most flight planners are perfectly happy to tell you, to
the minute and the 1/10th of a gallon, what it takes to fly direct from
Atlantic City to Block Island, but a quick glance at a sectional will
make it obvious you're proposing a flight over open ocean. Likewise,
you want to know about stuff like mountain ranges, airspace, etc.

I'm a big fan of visual flying. Sure, VOR or GPS will get you where you
want to go, but I think picking out landmarks on a chart and finding
them from the air is a big part of the fun of flying.

For most VFR flights of significant length I plan carefully, especially since I
like to fly very low. I draw the lines on the sectionals, checking for special
use airspace, obstacles such as towers, landmarks, frequencies of interest
(ATIS and CTAF of nearby airports and navaids). I plan waypoints and calculate
time and distance, course and heading, and make note on my form of the maximum
obstacle altitudes along my route or quadrant as appropriate. I also put my
destiation frequences, runway designations, and altitudes and TPA up at the
top. In flight, having all this info readily available is very convenient and
helps keep track of where I am.

I don't pay much attention to the GPS... at least I try not to. Lean on it too
much and one day you'll realize you've become a passenger rather than a pilot.

I use pilotage as my primary navigation when VFR.

IFR I plan the route based on Victor airways, and then throw it all out upon
getting my clearance. I throw the clearance out when I get reroutes in flight.
However the planning does help me cope with reroutes because it helps me find
the new routing on the chart.

I am capable of just picking up and going, but I prefer to have the flight
planned ahead of time.

Jose

--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

In a previous article, "Nasir" said:
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?

I was flying IFR from Rochester NY to Goderich today. First thing I did,
a few days ago I plugged the route into AeroPlanner and did the auto route
thing. Duh, turns out it's a pretty damn simple route, I probably should
have just looked at the enroute chart. I plugged the route into CoPilot
in my Palm, and into my GPS, and hilighted it on both the US and Canadian
enroute charts.

This morning, checked the weather - it was going to be VFR the whole way,
but I decided to stick with IFR just to simplify the cross border
operation. Plugged the winds aloft into CoPilot, and also used it to
check the weight and balance (two people and 30 pounds of gear is NOT
enough to put the Lance anywhere near overweight, by the way). It was
going to be about a hour and a half flight. I figured it was going to
take half an hour to prepare the plane, and we needed 2 hours notice for
customs, so I called CANPASS, only to be told that Goderich wasn't an
airport of entry on the weekends - I guess I should have checked the AF/D
more carefully, since I thought on off hours you could still get customs
via call-out like you can at US airports of entry. Ok, no problem. Did a
CANPASS report for London. Filed IFR to London. Didn't bother to update
either the GPS, and just put London into CoPilot as a ground stop.

Had a little problem with the GPS not agreeing with the VOR and I followed
the VOR. Turns out that the radios in the planes are labelled wrong, so I
thought I'd tuned ROC for the outbound, but was following the OBS for the
radio tuned to GEE. Funnily enough, I thought I'd identified the VOR - I
guess I hadn't looked carefully enough at the audio panel when I'd pushed
the button and heard Rochester's ident.

Took off, flew the plan, and did it. The ETEs weren't going right - we
were getting tons more headwind than forecast, and we were going to be
half an hour late for customs. But hey, this is Canadian customs, not US,
so we weren't anticipating any problems. And we didn't get any.

We didn't go on to Goderich because of a little matter of the plane not
producing power on take off from London, requiring an emergency landing
back at London.

Oh well, that's flying for you.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Diplomacy is the ability to let someone else have your way.

In article , 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?

How much do you all plan before each x-country? Am I the only slacker?

I am a renter pilot, so the first item on the list is to determine
aircraft availablity and schedule as soon as a trip is conceived. For
example, two weeks ago, I scheduled my aircraft of choice for the week
of Airventure/Oshkosh 2004.

If I am taking a long cross country, I begin the actual route planning
a week or two before the planned departure date. This allows me to
speak directly to FBO's and make any necessary arrangements and
reservations. Better to schedule heated hangar reservations in advance
than at the last minute. If there are special events scheduled for your
destination airport you can reserve tiedown/hangar space early.
For renter pilots, this is also a good time to check that there is no
maintenance scheduled prior to your departure that will affect the date
and time. If you need to schedule another aircraft, do so as soon as
practicle.

Route planning is a matter of looking at the Sectional/WAC/Planning
Chart(s) and determining a route based on aircraft, passengers, weather
and terrain.
Once the route is determined, it is time for DUATs/DUAT to crunch the
numbers. For initial planning, select the no-wind option and plug in
the route. Once you have total trip length and time, you break the trip
into leg times of your comfort level. This is the first pass to
derermine an area for intermediate stops. With the intermediate area
determined, you can fine tune to the exact airport based on your needs.

I start looking at weather prog charts five days prior to departure and
check them each day to observe how the forecasts change.
Three day prior to departure, forecast winds are available and
DUATs/DUAT is used to determine preliminary leg times, fuel
consumption, and if necessary, route changes.

Twenty four hours prior to departure, unless there is something really
funky going on with the weather, weather, route, time/fuel/distance is
firmed up. Also, last minute NOTAMS generally become available.

Eight to ten hours prior to deparature, a weather check is done to
ascertain that the weather is holding and NOTAMs are verified.

One hour prior to departure, a call to FSS is made for last minute
verification and NOTAM checks.

You are taught pilotage as a shield against the day when you computer flight
planning software crashes. You do need something to fall back on.

Bob Gardner

"Nasir" wrote in message
news
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

For most VFR flights of significant length I plan carefully, especially
since I
like to fly very low.

This is an interesting statement that begs for an explanation. Why do you
like to fly "very low"?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

(Paul Tomblin) wrote:
We didn't go on to Goderich because of a little matter of the plane not
producing power on take off from London, requiring an emergency landing
back at London.

Oh well, that's flying for you.

Along those lines, I think the most important thing to take on any trip
in a small plane is a fully-charged credit card. It can buy you fuel,
emergency repairs, dinner (or a hotel room) while you wait out weather,
a rental car, or an airline ticket.

I can't think of anything else which packs so much aviation safety into
such a small package :-)