Cross Country Planning

Matthew Waugh

This document describes the expectations of a Student pilot in terms of cross-country planning. Cross-country planning can be a self-study option and before your first cross country you'll spend about 30 minutes explaining your planning to your instructor and then you'll fly the dual cross-country together. An alternative is to work with your instructor in a ground school session to plan a cross-country. A cross-country ground school session should be about 2 hours.

There are also books on various aspects of VFR cross-country planning, at the end of this document there are some recommendations.

What you want to avoid is scheduling for a 2 hour session and turning up without a cross country plan and expecting to fly.

**** This document was written while I was training out of uncontrolled airports. While it still generally holds true, pilots who train out of RDU need practice finding uncontrolled fields more than they nee practice going to controlled airports. One day I'll revise the whole document. ****

Equipment You'll Need

VFR Sectional Chart(s). You'll want up to date charts that cover the route you'll be flying. North Carolina publishes a very nice aviation chart and it's free and lot's of people collect this as their first chart. It's no good for cross country planning. First of all it's not on the scale of a sectional chart so you're plotter won't work, and secondly it's not updated as often. Get a real VFR sectional chart!
Airport Facility Directory (A/FD). You'll need this to find all the detailed information on the airports you'll be flying to. There are commercial products that offer similar and sometimes more detailed information, but the A/FD is updated very 56 days and has the most up to date information.
Plotter. We'll need to measure courses on our charts so we'll need a plotter.
Flight Computer. I recommend a basic E-6B, but if you want to use a fancy electronic computer that's fine, just know how to use it and be ready to explain what you're going to do if the battery is dead.
Navigation Log. You can buy these at FBOs and various pilot stores, there are versions available on the Web and lot's of FBOs have flight planning logs just hanging around for you to pick up and use. At a minimum your Navigation Log needs to include spaces for Course, Heading, Distance, Time and Fuel.
Kneeboard. You need a way of organizing the information in the cockpit and and something to rest on when you're updating your navigation log. I suggest either a simple strap on knee board or go to a stationary supply store and buy an 8x11 clip board, some extra clips and some foam to stick on the back so it doesn't slip.
Pencils and Eraser. You're going to be writing stuff down, and you will make mistakes. That's multiple pencils by the way, don't bring one, break it and then ask what you do next.

What to Do

This is not a detailed explanation of how to perform cross country planning, it's just a list of the steps you'll go through. You should have reference books that explain all this, or your instructor will cover it with you in Ground School.

Draw your course on the Sectional chart (s).
Measure your True Course.
Identify Visual Checkpoints and mark them on the chart - about one every 5-7 miles is good.
Put the Checkpoints on your Navigation log.
Measure the distances between the checkpoints and enter that on the navigation log.
Get the forecast Winds Aloft.
Select altitude(s) for the route of flight.
Calculate the Magnetic Heading accounting for wind correction and variation.
Calculate the True Airspeed.
Calculate the Ground Speed.
Determine the Time between checkpoints.
Determine the Fuel used between checkpoints.
Determine if fuel is adequate for the trip, including reserves.
Review the departure and destination airport information, frequencies, runways etc.
Review any en-route ATC services.
Prepare a VFR flight plan.
Develop an alternate plan in case you can't complete this one.

Repeat this for each leg of the cross-country. At the end you should have a separate nav. log for each leg of the flight and at a minimum have the following information available for each segment from checkpoint to checkpoint:

Magnetic Course (Heading if you've found the aircraft compass deviation card).
Estimated Time
Estimated Fuel Required

As we fly each leg we'll note the Actual Time (in minutes past the hour), calculate an Estimated Time of Arrival (in minutes past the hour) and note our Actual Time EnRoute to compare with our estimates. In the event that our actual and estimated times vary significantly we'll have to consider our fuel consumption and may need to recompute our Actual Fuel Used and make new Fuel Estimates.

Cross-Country Training

If you're doing your flight training with me then you should already have a copy of the post-solo syllabus. You should expect that your cross-country training and solo cross-countries will follow this pattern. Other instructors may have other plans, talk to your instructor about your cross-country training plan.

A couple of short cross-countries, one out and back and another to 2 airports. All within 25NM of your base airport. We'll plan and fly these just like any cross-country to get used to cross-country planning. Normally you'll receive a "repeated solo flight" endorsement to one of the airports after this flight.
An out and back training cross-country to an airport greater than 50NM. This will be the route you repeat on your first solo cross-country.
A training cross-country to 2 different airports, at least one of them a controlled airport.
Your first solo cross-country repeating the out and back training cross-country.
Your "long" cross-country to meet the regulations including some tower controlled airport(s).
If you need additional solo cross-country time we'll find a way to add that in.

This is designed to efficiently train you to safely perform cross-country flight. If you or I feel that you need additional cross-country training, we'll add it to the schedule. Of you want more exposure to tower controlled airports we can make some trips to local airports for the experience.

Which airports we go to is up to you. Obviously I have some recommendations and you may find that there are some airports I veto (for example you won't be getting a sign-off for repeated trips to RDU unless there's a good reason for it). Make sure you've discussed your airport choices with me before you go to the trouble of planning a flight I might not think is appropriate.

Does Everybody Do This?

Every Student Pilot does, and here's why.

The FAA wants it done this way, and that's the way you'll be expected to perform cross-country flight planning on your check ride.

You need to know how to do this so that WHEN you make long cross-country flights using the maximum range of your aircraft you can plan them and fly them safely. Ensuring that you have enough fuel when you takeoff and reviewing the fuel requirements in flight to make sure you have enough fuel to land. By using pilotage you can navigate by looking out of the window even if all the electronics in the plane or on the ground go kaput!

But does everybody do this before every flight they take? Not really, once you're familiar with various airports and routes that you routinely fly you can "flight plan" on a blank 3x5 postcard. Once you're a Private Pilot ask your instructor to show you some short cuts to flight planning.

Cross Country Planning

Equipment You'll Need

What to Do

Cross-Country Training

Does Everybody Do This?

Recommended Reading