Pre-flight planning really is worth doing.

Yesterday, I did something I don't get to do much any more -- just
headed off on a trip with no particular purpose in mind other than it
was a nice day and I wanted to go flying. I looked at a chart and found
an airport I'd never been to before, Claremont NH, and off I went. I
did enough pre-flight planning to be sure I had plenty of fuel, and that
was about it. I filed IFR just to stay in practice.

OK, I get there, and decide to fly the GPS-29. How tough can this be?
The approach plate has a note, "Obtain local altimeter setting on CTAF;
when not received, use Springfield altimeter setting". I'm still 20-30
miles out from the IAF when I start to brief the approach, and am mildly
annoyed that they don't put the Springfield ATIS/AWOS freq on the plate.
No big deal, I can look it up.

I pull out my AFD and find the entry for Springfield, Mass. Then I
realize I passed that quite a distance back, so that can't be right.
OK, I flip over to the New Hampshire section, and look up Springfield.
Huh, it's not there? That's strange. I go back and look at the plate
again. Springfield, yeah. Back to the AFD. Still can't find it.

By this time, Boston Center is giving me my descent and approach
clearance, so I deal with that. Then, suddenly, it starts to get bumpy,
just as I get to the IAF, and the GPS is giving me turns to fly. I've
wasted so much time trying to find the Springfield ATIS freq, I realize
I haven't really looked at the descent profile yet. Gee, it didn't take
long to go from fat, dumb, and happy to being behind the airplane!

OK, prioritize. I've got a recent en-route altimeter, that's more than
good enough (especially considering there's barely a cloud in the sky).
Screw the altimeter setting and fly the plane. Found the airport,
cancelled IFR, and landed uneventfully.

It wasn't until I looked at airnav this morning, that I realized they
meant Springfield, VERMONT. I guess if I had done more than about 3
minutes of pre-flight planning, I would have known that. Sigh.

if I had done more than about 3
minutes of pre-flight planning, I would have known that. Sigh.

Moral of the story. The pilot should make himself aware of all and any
informantion
before he starts the engine.
Hank 172 diriver

Preflight planning sometimes has to start sooner than that. I was flying to
CVG (Cincinnatti, Ohio), so stopped by the FBO and picked up the plates for
Ohio and might have gone off fat dumb and happy, but I wanted to see the info
on the airport. I leafed through it, no Cincinatti. Tried again - how could I
miss it... but no matter how hard I looked, there just wasn't a Cincinatti in
Ohio. But I know better than that.... Now I know better than I knew when I
knew better than that. Cincinatti airport is in KENTUCKY!

Jose

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

"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...
Preflight planning sometimes has to start sooner than that. I was flying
to
CVG (Cincinnatti, Ohio), so stopped by the FBO and picked up the plates
for
Ohio and might have gone off fat dumb and happy, but I wanted to see the
info
on the airport. I leafed through it, no Cincinatti. Tried again - how
could I
miss it... but no matter how hard I looked, there just wasn't a Cincinatti
in
Ohio. But I know better than that.... Now I know better than I knew
when I
knew better than that. Cincinatti airport is in KENTUCKY!

Jose

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

Yep. Another clue is CVG (Covington, Ky). But I went to school there for 5
years so I'm cheating.

J. Severyn LVK

Not having the frequency for the RASS has caught me as well, Roy. And
preflight planning doesn't help much in the event of an unplanned diversion.
It takes a lot of scrambling in the cockpit or ATC help.

Another thing that is easy to overlook in "quickie" flight planning is
NOTAMs. Once I got a DUAT standard briefing, but in the several pages of
NOTAMs about unlit towers, etc., in my haste I missed the one-liner that
said "NO 100LL" at my destination airport. A controller read it to me as I
approached the airport, he didn't know what it meant but wanted me to know
about it. That eventually caused an unplanned diversion and a call of
"Minimum Fuel" to approach. Now I use the word processor to search for the
airport identifier, haste or not.

Stan


"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
Yesterday, I did something I don't get to do much any more -- just
headed off on a trip with no particular purpose in mind other than it
was a nice day and I wanted to go flying. I looked at a chart and found
an airport I'd never been to before, Claremont NH, and off I went. I
did enough pre-flight planning to be sure I had plenty of fuel, and that
was about it. I filed IFR just to stay in practice.

OK, I get there, and decide to fly the GPS-29. How tough can this be?
The approach plate has a note, "Obtain local altimeter setting on CTAF;
when not received, use Springfield altimeter setting". I'm still 20-30
miles out from the IAF when I start to brief the approach, and am mildly
annoyed that they don't put the Springfield ATIS/AWOS freq on the plate.
No big deal, I can look it up.

I pull out my AFD and find the entry for Springfield, Mass. Then I
realize I passed that quite a distance back, so that can't be right.
OK, I flip over to the New Hampshire section, and look up Springfield.
Huh, it's not there? That's strange. I go back and look at the plate
again. Springfield, yeah. Back to the AFD. Still can't find it.

By this time, Boston Center is giving me my descent and approach
clearance, so I deal with that. Then, suddenly, it starts to get bumpy,
just as I get to the IAF, and the GPS is giving me turns to fly. I've
wasted so much time trying to find the Springfield ATIS freq, I realize
I haven't really looked at the descent profile yet. Gee, it didn't take
long to go from fat, dumb, and happy to being behind the airplane!

OK, prioritize. I've got a recent en-route altimeter, that's more than
good enough (especially considering there's barely a cloud in the sky).
Screw the altimeter setting and fly the plane. Found the airport,
cancelled IFR, and landed uneventfully.

It wasn't until I looked at airnav this morning, that I realized they
meant Springfield, VERMONT. I guess if I had done more than about 3
minutes of pre-flight planning, I would have known that. Sigh.

Roy Smith wrote
am mildly
annoyed that they don't put the Springfield ATIS/AWOS freq on the plate.

Of course they don't. It might convenience the pilot.

And then we wonder why so few private pilots get instrument ratings,
and so few of those actually stay current. It's just one of many
system gotchas.

Sorry, I'm ranting. I just got done with doing recurrent training for
some pilots, and the one thing they all had in common was this - they
all had more problem with gotchas like this than anything else.

Michael

I feel your pain. I once flew an approach that required getting the
altimeter setting from a military airfield that was not listed in the
approach books at the time. Thankfully ATC was able to provide it.

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
Yesterday, I did something I don't get to do much any more -- just
headed off on a trip with no particular purpose in mind other than it
was a nice day and I wanted to go flying. I looked at a chart and found
an airport I'd never been to before, Claremont NH, and off I went. I
did enough pre-flight planning to be sure I had plenty of fuel, and that
was about it. I filed IFR just to stay in practice.

OK, I get there, and decide to fly the GPS-29. How tough can this be?
The approach plate has a note, "Obtain local altimeter setting on CTAF;
when not received, use Springfield altimeter setting". I'm still 20-30
miles out from the IAF when I start to brief the approach, and am mildly
annoyed that they don't put the Springfield ATIS/AWOS freq on the plate.
No big deal, I can look it up.

I pull out my AFD and find the entry for Springfield, Mass. Then I
realize I passed that quite a distance back, so that can't be right.
OK, I flip over to the New Hampshire section, and look up Springfield.
Huh, it's not there? That's strange. I go back and look at the plate
again. Springfield, yeah. Back to the AFD. Still can't find it.

By this time, Boston Center is giving me my descent and approach
clearance, so I deal with that. Then, suddenly, it starts to get bumpy,
just as I get to the IAF, and the GPS is giving me turns to fly. I've
wasted so much time trying to find the Springfield ATIS freq, I realize
I haven't really looked at the descent profile yet. Gee, it didn't take
long to go from fat, dumb, and happy to being behind the airplane!

OK, prioritize. I've got a recent en-route altimeter, that's more than
good enough (especially considering there's barely a cloud in the sky).
Screw the altimeter setting and fly the plane. Found the airport,
cancelled IFR, and landed uneventfully.

It wasn't until I looked at airnav this morning, that I realized they
meant Springfield, VERMONT. I guess if I had done more than about 3
minutes of pre-flight planning, I would have known that. Sigh.