Wednesday, December 02, 2015

Not Flying? - Then It's Time For Learning Cross-Country Planning

This was supposed to be a day for a flying lesson. I had 757MK all reserved and everything.

I arrived and it was not to be. N757MK had just had an engine failure on takeoff with the previous student and instructor for no known reason. Not carb icing, Not the mixture or fuel tank or throttle setting or other readily apparent issues, and it was not reproducible. The plane started up again just fine, but out of a very sensible burst of caution, it was taken into the mechanics for a thorough check-over.

Since I would have been the next to fly it, I heartily approved that decision. Practicing engine failures is one thing, rolling the dice with a known problem with an unknown cause is quite another.

So we went over my pre-solo written test. I did very well with my answers and passed with flying colors - yay me!.

Then I got an intro to cross-country planning today instead.

While planning is much easier today with products like Foreflight and other internet-based resources, we started old school. A sectional, a Plotter and an E6B Flight "Computer" was what I was allowed to use to plan the flight.

The mission: Plan a trip from KPTK to KLAN.

Yes, I'm going to get to play in Class C airspace once this is all planned out.

We'll see if I get to fly the planned cross-country soon.

3 comments:

Murphy's Law said...

KLAN is a cake walk. Straight in to one of two parallel runways, either 28R or 28L. Being slow and small, you'll likely get 28R. It's a tiny Class C, so no worries there. Tower's never that busy and they are used to training flights from other local airports. You could not have an easier one. And if you cannot find it, just follow 96 until you see the Capitol dome, and then bear northwest. Easy Peasy.

Scott said...

Tell me when you're coming in and we'll go out for lunch (if you aren't paying by the hour for the aircraft). King of the Grill - right at the airport entrance, plenty of smoked meats and yummy sides. It doesn't look like much, but it eats well. I think I owe you a lunch anyway.

Unless you have other plans, of course.

Aaron said...

ML: Thanks. I looked at the airport diagram and it should be pretty straightforward.

Scott: Sounds great. Not sure when its happening, most likely the first one will be a brief arrival and go, but when the solo cross country happens, I can likely take a break and meet up with you for lunch.