comanche
Pre-Flight
It has been nearly 25 years since I had to plan a VFR cross country. Got an email from my CFI
"Hey Larry;
For tomorrow, weather permitting, plan a trip from Georgetown to San Marcos for lunch!
I will be along just for the ride"
So, I bought a new San Antonio Sectional and plotted the course got wind information and plugged all of that into the E6B and even made several visual check points along the route so I could tell him if he asked where we were at any particular time.
We were leaving from a Controlled airport overflying Class C airspace and landing at another controlled airport. I had plugged that in as well when I was going ask Austin Approach for transitioning authority.
Got to the airport after rechecking weather and filed a VFR flight plan. Went so far as to call another CFI buddy to see if I had forgotten anything. He said, I was fine.
We had a few minutes oral as to my plan of attack and he told me.
" Too much work. At our age, we work smart not hard. If you were a brand new student pilot I would expect you to prepare a cross country that way, but you have a commercial certificate and an instrument rating. Let's do it the easy way. " He has a Garmin 650 glass cockpit plus dual VOR radios and I have a IPad which has all kind of nav aids loaded onto it. He knows even if one of the systems went out, there is so much redundancy to insure we know where we are.
"When you get you lift off from KGTU, ask the tower for flight following and you will not have to contact Austin Approach. " This made so much sense to me, but I was not sure what he was looking for so I planned it the old fashioned way.
It is so nice to know common sense sometimes prevails.
"Hey Larry;
For tomorrow, weather permitting, plan a trip from Georgetown to San Marcos for lunch!
I will be along just for the ride"
So, I bought a new San Antonio Sectional and plotted the course got wind information and plugged all of that into the E6B and even made several visual check points along the route so I could tell him if he asked where we were at any particular time.
We were leaving from a Controlled airport overflying Class C airspace and landing at another controlled airport. I had plugged that in as well when I was going ask Austin Approach for transitioning authority.
Got to the airport after rechecking weather and filed a VFR flight plan. Went so far as to call another CFI buddy to see if I had forgotten anything. He said, I was fine.
We had a few minutes oral as to my plan of attack and he told me.
" Too much work. At our age, we work smart not hard. If you were a brand new student pilot I would expect you to prepare a cross country that way, but you have a commercial certificate and an instrument rating. Let's do it the easy way. " He has a Garmin 650 glass cockpit plus dual VOR radios and I have a IPad which has all kind of nav aids loaded onto it. He knows even if one of the systems went out, there is so much redundancy to insure we know where we are.
"When you get you lift off from KGTU, ask the tower for flight following and you will not have to contact Austin Approach. " This made so much sense to me, but I was not sure what he was looking for so I planned it the old fashioned way.
It is so nice to know common sense sometimes prevails.