X-Country flights - what is involved ?
Andrew M. Sarangan
Well, I am getting to that point of my training. In the next few weeks
I should be getting ready for the dual X-country training. Just
conversing with my instructor he said that X-C flights are quite
demanding and will keep me very busy for a while. I am sure he will explain
everything to me in detail when the time comes, but I want to get a head
start by understanding what the source of the difficulty is.
I understand this much: You pick the destination, check the weather
enroute, have all the runway layouts, VFR Navigation maps, and the
frequencies ready. Draw a straight line from point A to B, figure
out the drift lines due to wind, and adjust the heading as you pass various
checkpoints. You use a combination of heading and pilotage to navigate.
That doesn't sound all that difficult so far. I am assuming that the
actualy flying of the aircraft is done with no effort at this point.
Could someone please enlighten me on this ?
--
Andrew Sarangan
sara...@maxwell.uwaterloo.ca
stul...@nortel.ca
colleen condron
In article <DutM4...@novice.uwaterloo.ca> sara...@maxwell.uwaterloo.ca (Andrew M. Sarangan) writes:
>From: sara...@maxwell.uwaterloo.ca (Andrew M. Sarangan)
>Subject: X-Country flights - what is involved ?
>Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 02:40:53 GMT
<SNIP>
>I understand this much: You pick the destination, check the weather
>enroute, have all the runway layouts, VFR Navigation maps, and the
>frequencies ready. Draw a straight line from point A to B, figure
>out the drift lines due to wind, and adjust the heading as you pass various
>checkpoints. You use a combination of heading and pilotage to navigate.
>That doesn't sound all that difficult so far. I am assuming that the
>actualy flying of the aircraft is done with no effort at this point.
>Could someone please enlighten me on this ?
Well, on paper, yeah, that's "all" there is to it. It also requires
the most intense concentration, which will exhaust you. There is
a lot to be thinking of when you are up there, and a lot to keep track
of....."when do I switch frequencies" ? "is that the right checkpoint"?
"how close am I to being on time"? My best advice would be to overplan,
over-organize, and have post-it notes and extra pencils at the ready...
Colleen
PP-ASEL
dn
In article <DutM4...@novice.uwaterloo.ca>, sara...@maxwell.uwaterloo.ca
says...
>
>
>Well, I am getting to that point of my training. In the next few weeks
>I should be getting ready for the dual X-country training.
>
Don't worry. Have fun. I've been a CFI for over two years and like I tell all my students.
The first leg of the flight you may seem a little lost, i.e. keeping up with your nav. log, taking
leg times, but if you think about it, modt of 90% of the flight will be done straight and level.
You can use the rudder pedals to keep wings level if you need both hands to write any info.
down. don't always just draw a straight line from A to B. Take into consideration navaids,
obstructions, special use airspace, and most importantly...GOOD CHECKPOINTS! I have
seen too many times students pick the worse checkpoints in the world.
Study your route and 'fly the route in your mind the night before you go.
Also remember the 7 P's of flying...Piss Poor Planning Produces Piss Poor Performance!
Have Fun and happy landings!
Darren Baldwin
CFII
Roy Smith
>> I understand this much: You pick the destination, check the weather
>> enroute, have all the runway layouts, VFR Navigation maps, and the
>> frequencies ready. Draw a straight line from point A to B
I know some people teach the "straight line from A to B" stuff, but for
pilotage (especially for people just starting out), I think that's silly.
If you're really going to fly by pilotage, make life easy on yourself and
pick landmarks which are impossible to miss from the air, or to confuse with
something else. Major rivers, large lakes with unusual shapes (hint, every
small lake in Northern NJ looks just like every other small lake in Northern
NJ), major bridges, airports with multiple large runways, coastlines, etc.
If you've got to plot a zig-zag course to hop from good landmark to good
landmark, do it. It'll take a little longer, but so what?
--
Roy Smith <r...@nyu.edu>
Hippocrates Project, Department of Microbiology, Coles 202
NYU School of Medicine, 550 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
"This never happened to Bart Simpson."
Angus Duggan
In article <4ss2u6$6...@news.nyu.edu> r...@mchip00.med.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes:
>something else. Major rivers, large lakes with unusual shapes (hint, every
>small lake in Northern NJ looks just like every other small lake in Northern
>NJ), major bridges, airports with multiple large runways, coastlines, etc.
This is similar to something that I've found out during my X-country training;
I thought it would be easy to navigate in East Anglia; it's flat, there are
plenty of villages with roads to watch out for, and disused airfields all over
the place. Except that all the villages look the same from the air, the roads
twist and turn, and the disused airfields vary from invisible ones that have
had trees growing on them for forty years up to ones with 12,000 foot tarmac
runways. There are also plenty of canals to confuse with rivers, rivers don't
take the straightest route to the sea because it's so flat, and so on. I think
I'd prefer a nice coastline or hill to use as a reference.
a.
--
Angus Duggan, Harlequin Ltd., Barrington Hall, | INET: an...@harlequin.co.uk
Barrington, Cambridge CB2 5RG, U.K. | PHONE: +44 1223 873838
http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/ajcd/ | Student pilot, ~34 hours.
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~ajcd/ | Tech exam, NFT, GFT to go...
Clayton Cranor
Roy Smith wrote:
some good advice about picking landmarks on x/c.....
I would also add that it is a good idea to locate good landmarks that bracket
your route of flight. "If I see the BIG river I've overflown the airport."
This is especially useful in areas where landmarks may be difficult.
Clay
Larry Fox
prec...@cyberramp.net (dn) wrote:
>In article <DutM4...@novice.uwaterloo.ca>, sara...@maxwell.uwaterloo.ca
>says...
>>
>>
>>Well, I am getting to that point of my training. In the next few weeks
>>I should be getting ready for the dual X-country training.
>>
>>Could someone please enlighten me on this ?
>>--
>>Andrew Sarangan
>>sara...@maxwell.uwaterloo.ca
>>stul...@nortel.ca
> Take into consideration navaids,
>obstructions, special use airspace, and most importantly...GOOD CHECKPOINTS! I have
>seen too many times students pick the worse checkpoints in the world.
I have to agree with this one. My first x-c (dual) went just great
after the first checkpoint. I think the biggest thing I screwed up on
was allowing myself to drift too far in some of the places there were
no navaids. My instructor being true to the cause let me get just far
enough off to realize I had better pay attention.
A good deal of the time you won't be doing very much. This is a good
time to relax a bit, think about your next checkpoint, and ask your
instructor to show you any available means of nav you can try at the
time.
And, if you don't have anything better to do, look out the window. I
am sure you will be passing over some sites that may be pretty cool.
Take a look at them from your new perspective.
Larry Fox
tem...@dump.com
Ingo Ciechowski
> And, if you don't have anything better to do, look out the window. I
> am sure you will be passing over some sites that may be pretty cool.
> Take a look at them from your new perspective.
and BTW don't forget to scan for traffic ;-)
Theo Mennekes
Andrew M. Sarangan wrote:
>
> I understand this much: You pick the destination, check the weather
> enroute, have all the runway layouts, VFR Navigation maps, and the
> frequencies ready. Draw a straight line from point A to B, figure
> out the drift lines due to wind, and adjust the heading as you pass various
> checkpoints. You use a combination of heading and pilotage to navigate.
> That doesn't sound all that difficult so far. I am assuming that the
> actualy flying of the aircraft is done with no effort at this point.
>
> Could someone please enlighten me on this ?
> --
> Andrew Sarangan
> sara...@maxwell.uwaterloo.ca
> stul...@nortel.ca
Hi Andrew!
Here a little tale about what happened to me at my first dual X-country:
For about one hour everything went fine. Then I missed one of my check-
points, a huge tower. Actually, there was a tower, but a few miles abeam.
So I decided to take a look at my chart, thinking about X-winds, similar
towers in the vicinity and a lot more. Suddenly, I was quiet confused.
Looking outside again and thinking about to use some navaid I felt my
clipboard falling from my knees. After I grabed down to put it up again
(all the paperwork was completely mixed up), I looked at my instruments.
There I was with a 50° bank. That was the point were I was totally lost -
with (thanks goodness) an instructor sitting next to me laughing the shit
out of himselves. Of course, he had control of everything all of the time
and after this little lection I think I'll never forget to recheck the
non slaved dg in a small aircraft again.
--
Ted
PP C425, C441, BH06
Germany
nightjar
In article <uraq4i...@coll.cam.harlequin.co.uk>, an...@harlequin.co.uk (Angus Duggan) says:
>
>In article <4ss2u6$6...@news.nyu.edu> r...@mchip00.med.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes:
>>something else. Major rivers, large lakes with unusual shapes (hint, every
>>small lake in Northern NJ looks just like every other small lake in Northern
>>NJ), major bridges, airports with multiple large runways, coastlines, etc.
>
>This is similar to something that I've found out during my X-country training;
>I thought it would be easy to navigate in East Anglia; it's flat, there are
>plenty of villages with roads to watch out for, and disused airfields all over
>the place. Except that all the villages look the same from the air, the roads
>twist and turn, and the disused airfields vary from invisible ones that have
>had trees growing on them for forty years up to ones with 12,000 foot tarmac
>runways. There are also plenty of canals to confuse with rivers, rivers don't
>take the straightest route to the sea because it's so flat, and so on. I think
>I'd prefer a nice coastline or hill to use as a reference.
>
I'll have to bear that in mind when I take my mother up to see her
relatives in Lynn. There are few places in Sussex, Hampshire or Kent
I have not come to recognise by sight given a few moments to
orientate myself. Uckfield has distinctive factory units, Brighton
has a tower block which stands out against the sea from well inland
or the Marina if you are on the coast, Crowborough runs up the face
of a hill, Ashford is obvious from the orientation of railway and road,
Maidstone has the distinctive Leeds Castle to the East, Portsmouth
has the dockyards, Billingshurst an odd shaped lake, Plumpton
a race course at the foot of the Downs etc. etc. Of course, now
I don't have to meet the requirements of a Navigation Flight Test,
I usually fly VOR radials anyway.
Nightjar
Mike Edgerton
In article <DutM4...@novice.uwaterloo.ca>, sara...@maxwell.uwaterloo.ca (Andrew M. Sarangan) says:
>
>Just conversing with my instructor he said that X-C flights are quite
>demanding and will keep me very busy for a while.
>enroute, have all the runway layouts, VFR Navigation maps, and the
>frequencies ready. Draw a straight line from point A to B, figure
>out the drift lines due to wind, and adjust the heading as you pass
>various checkpoints.
>actualy flying of the aircraft is done with no effort at this point.
The items you mentioned above come under flight planning and yes, it
isn't very difficult as the only thing you're flying at the time is
a desk.
A VFR pilot should be spending 90% ++ of the time looking out of the
window.
Now add ATC requesting frequent updates on arrival time and current
position.
Diversions due to unexpected weather requiring inflight flight plan
changes.
A busy flight environment with frequent radio attention being required.
Possible radar vectoring to move you out of the way of IFR traffic
followed by "resume own navigation" ????
Winds that are not as forecast requiring recalculation of heading to
be flown.
Possible self induced errors made during flight planning.
Fuel management.
Cockpit management.
Couple this with the somewhat neccesary requirement to fly the plane
(a skill that you're still learning) and I think you should find it
reasonably demanding the first few times.
Mike
Gene Whitt
In <4t493m$j...@ohnasn01.sinet.slb.com> edge...@dubai.wireline.slb.com
Mike,
I would like to add what most pilots find the most difficult
kicker to all cross country flying, the arrival.
I had student plan dual trip and he selected a route following I-5
down the west side of California's central valley. In the typical
instructor mode of making the easy thing hard, I put him under
the just after he had given a position report and made a ETA
estimate.
He had neglected to make HI/Compass checks so the HI was
about 10 degrees off. I sat there waiting for everything to
go wrong. It didn't. His flying errors corrected for his
HI/compass error. When the time elapsed and I had him take off
the hood he looked out his window and there was the airport.
Given a choice between good and lucky, take lucky.
However, the transition from hood to visual, always a major
problem in IFR flight, caused my student to lose sight of
the airport while closing his flight plan.
He refused to accept that the airport was still out his
window. Even when he found the airport again, and again,
and again, he proceeded to lose it while trying to make
his pattern entries. I finally decided to be of help
and had him refer to the sectional. He made it on the
fourth try. I do believe that his planning, next time,
will include more than just getting there.
Gene Whitt
Doug Fredlund
Andrew,
There IS a lot to learn about cross country flying. The
most important thing to keep in mind, is that experience comes
SLOWLY. The best advice I can give you, is to maximise your
learning experience by picking one item from several of the areas
you need to learn about; such as weather, Flight Service
communications, etc., then try it out in the same way you might
begin to learn a new software program. Plan these in addition to
your Instructor's asignments, discuss them with him before you
leave, and talk about your experiences with him when you return.
Then look up all the information you can about the subject from
good references, like FAA publication 61-21A.
Another valuable game to play with yourself while flying
cross country is: "What would I do if I had an emergency now?"
Out of the blue, imagine you had a cockpit fire; what waould you
do? What if the engine quit; where would you land? What wouuld
happen if I had a bird strike? There are many senerios you need
to be prepared for. One day you will be glad you thought the
emergency through during the comfort of a cross country flight.
You are also bound to have questions about wisdom of a certain
tactic. Talk it over with your instructor, and look up reference
material that discusses these issues.
If there is any way I can be of help, you have my E-mail
address; write me.
Doug Fredlund - CFII