What do you learn on X-Country?

Why does anybody care if a guy just wants to fly from point A to point B quickly? Is there but one correct way to enjoy flying planes? What if that is pure joy to him?

Let's say that you do all your training, all the everything you can possibly do... then one day you're bored and just want to fly somewhere on auto pilot. Is that wrong? No sir. Just different. It's beautiful to just look out the window too while "somebody else" is flying.

That's what's great, we can all enjoy aviation "our way". If other people don't like it, they don't have to join you, and they can do it "their way". Nobody is right or wrong, that I can tell.
 
sarangan said:
If you are looking for auto-takeoff and auto-landing, with a nap during cruise, I would suggest taking an airline, or greyhound. It is a lot cheaper, and more comfortable too.
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i'll disagree on more comfortable, but i'm a bigger fella
 
Shepherd said:
BTW: I had a very pleasant time in the Cub today.
I flew from GBR to NY1 shot some landings, then flew back. Burned up a little over an hours worth of fuel and enjoyed the scenery and the warm weather.
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Is that flight considered a x-country?
It is around 15nm?
 
sarangan said:
If you are looking for auto-takeoff and auto-landing, with a nap during cruise, I would suggest taking an airline, or greyhound. It is a lot cheaper, and more comfortable too.
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Doing the math taking a united flight would take longer, be more of a hassle, about the same in comfort and potentially 1.5 to double the cost.
Not to mention the total lack of flexibility
 
jordane93 said:
I learned that I shouldn’t pick lakes as checkpoints in PA because there’s a million of them.
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I crossed Pensilvania on my way to and from New York several times, and the only lake in there was Lake Erie.
 
Bobanna said:
You sound tall....
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not crazy, 6'3", 230lbs, but my shoulders are way wider than the seats, so you have to hunch in, even when I've been skinny, airline seats are uncomfortable as i'm not willing to spill over into my neighbor's spot.

also, my neck and head are above the rear of the seat, so it isn't comfortable. a 172 is far more comfortable, albeit more work.
 
StevieTimes said:
Let's say that you do all your training, all the everything you can possibly do... then one day you're bored and just want to fly somewhere on auto pilot. Is that wrong? No sir. Just different. It's beautiful to just look out the window too while "somebody else" is flying.
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That's fine, but that's not where this guy is. OP sounds like he's got about 100 hours and just cruises along on X/C while 'Bob' flies the plane. He hasn't exactly learned "all the everything you can possibly do".
 
zaitcev said:
If you want to get from point A to point B, you do not learn to fly, but buy a ticket at United.
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My mission is to get from point A to point B as safely, quickly and as comfortably as I can. The patients appreciate that as well, especially when I go around thunderstorms.
 
I learned how to time my takeoffs so I'd miss the ag planes that were landing in the opposite direction and not talking on CTAF.

I learned how quiet the radio can be on a long xc in the middle of the day in the middle of the week in the middle of Kansas.

I learned a line guy in a little airport in the middle of Kansas has a business card that says "Refueling Engineer".

I learned that it is cool to be a pilot, alone, and fly places I've never been to before.

And I learned how to do all this with a paper sectional, a watch, a compass, a pencil, a whiz wheel, and a pair of Mk1 Eyeballs.
 
Shawn said:
You learn why a Gatorade bottle is better than a water bottle and its direct correlation to turbulence.

You don't learn that in the pattern.
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Ha! This has to be a larger category of somewhat humorous and harmless lessons, like taking potato chip bags above 10,000 on a hot day, or not being careful about opening soda cans at altitude. My wife managed to coat most of the cockpit in a thin veneer of Dr. Pepper on one trip. I think that was right before the potato chip bag incident.
 
chemgeek said:
Ha! This has to be a larger category of somewhat humorous and harmless lessons, like taking potato chip bags above 10,000 on a hot day, or not being careful about opening soda cans at altitude. My wife managed to coat most of the cockpit in a thin veneer of Dr. Pepper on one trip. I think that was right before the potato chip bag incident.
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Also in that category: I have a Camelbak Eddy bottle, the kind with a bite valve and straw. With even a small amount of headspace in the bottle, the bite valve can release a tremendous amount of water pressure when opened at altitude if you have not taken sips every so often on the way up.
 
My solo XC was 300nm each way too and I did the exact same thing. Slaved autopilot to GPS flight plan and had VFR flight following and sat back and enjoyed the flight.

Most of all my other flights involved flying by hand and so thats something I get plenty of. But 300nm is exhausting to fly by hand especially when you’re turning around and flying back same day. As it turns out, the autopilot did start acting up and so I had to hand fly for a while on the ride back. I decided to trouble shoot and pulled the fuse on the AP and when it booted back up it worked fine.

The solo XC is completely up to you to make it, so up until then it’s been easy to turn to the CFI and ask what to do, but on the solo you’re forced to solve problems on your own. Something new may pop up.

To the original poster: what kind of plane do you have? I’m 6’6” too
 
1st solo XC was from KOLM to KKLS. 51 nm. Lesson learned? If you can get lost flying this route, you need to find a different way to spend your disposable income. The classic IFR route - I Follow Roads. Just follow I-5 from Olympia to Kelso. If you can't do that on a clear and a million day, what can I say?
 
My XC’s have been shorter than most so far, but I’ve been able to go to an unfamiliar airport each time just for the experience. And I’m amazed at how “different” each one has been.
 
For those that say hand flying is exhausting, what are you doing to make it so? I have flown every flight except one by hand, and I am never exhausted becuase I'm the one maintaining course and altitude. Use trim, balance the fuel tanks, and the plane more or less flies itself. 1000 mile days, IMC, below zero, above 100, night afternoon, morning. Never consider it exhausting. Now what does tire me out is flying in the 10000 range for 4 hours or so. But that is going to be the case whether passenger or pilot.

So what are you doing on your flights that make you exhausted after 2 hours of hand flying?
 
EdFred said:
For those that say hand flying is exhausting, what are you doing to make it so? I have flown every flight except one by hand, and I am never exhausted becuase I'm the one maintaining course and altitude. Use trim, balance the fuel tanks, and the plane more or less flies itself. 1000 mile days, IMC, below zero, above 100, night afternoon, morning. Never consider it exhausting. Now what does tire me out is flying in the 10000 range for 4 hours or so. But that is going to be the case whether passenger or pilot.

So what are you doing on your flights that make you exhausted after 2 hours of hand flying?
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That’s cool. Does your plane (or the plane you fly regularly) not have an AP?

Maybe for newer pilots there’s still so much mental workload since everything is not second nature yet, it’s nice to not have to worry as much about maintaining heading / altitude and have more attention towards looking for traffic, learning landmarks, communicating, monitoring engine & instruments. I notice that when my attention veers over to something else momentarily my heading/altitude can drift a little.
 
Ghery said:
1st solo XC was from KOLM to KKLS. 51 nm. Lesson learned? If you can get lost flying this route, you need to find a different way to spend your disposable income. The classic IFR route - I Follow Roads. Just follow I-5 from Olympia to Kelso. If you can't do that on a clear and a million day, what can I say?
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Yes, but kelsi airport is sometimes hard to spot the first few times.

Just flew Krnt Kkls Krnt last night to pick the kids up from grandmas house


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
EdFred said:
For those that say hand flying is exhausting, what are you doing to make it so? I have flown every flight except one by hand, and I am never exhausted becuase I'm the one maintaining course and altitude. Use trim, balance the fuel tanks, and the plane more or less flies itself. 1000 mile days, IMC, below zero, above 100, night afternoon, morning. Never consider it exhausting. Now what does tire me out is flying in the 10000 range for 4 hours or so. But that is going to be the case whether passenger or pilot.

So what are you doing on your flights that make you exhausted after 2 hours of hand flying?
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For me it’s all the old $%@&# POS, out of rig airplanes I rent.
 
iamtheari said:
Also in that category: I have a Camelbak Eddy bottle, the kind with a bite valve and straw. With even a small amount of headspace in the bottle, the bite valve can release a tremendous amount of water pressure when opened at altitude if you have not taken sips every so often on the way up.
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Lol. Not a Camelback, but my wife has this special Gucci no methyl ethyl bad sheet in the plastic ya suck it up through the built in closable straw thingie water bottle.
 
TimRF79 said:
Is that flight considered a x-country?
It is around 15nm?
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Sure, if you flew straight there.
I'm not sure that's even possible in a Cub.
First, you have to add in all the up and down going up one side of the hills and down the other,
Second, you add in all the excursions flying down the valleys to see what's there,
Third, you need to figure out where the airport is now,
Fourth, what can you go see while getting there from where you currently are.
Repeat One through Four, as required, until fuel gets low and you need to be there (or somewhere).
That's how a 14 nm flight takes nearly an hour, and covers about 70 nm.
One interesting side effect (or unintended consequence) about flying this way is you never suffer from "get-there-itis", since you aren't really going somewhere, you're going anywhere.
 
EdFred said:
So what are you doing on your flights that make you exhausted after 2 hours of hand flying?
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Making 4 of those 2 hour trips daily with multible landings on each trip, plus loading and unloading people, mail and freight at each stop, fighting winds, weather and then wild life on the landing strips. Sure would be nice to let George fly for a little while so maybe I can get a bite between a couple landings, maybe a chance to pee in a bottle.

Sadly, sleds do not have auto pilots....
 
EdFred said:
For those that say hand flying is exhausting, what are you doing to make it so? I have flown every flight except one by hand, and I am never exhausted becuase I'm the one maintaining course and altitude. Use trim, balance the fuel tanks, and the plane more or less flies itself. 1000 mile days, IMC, below zero, above 100, night afternoon, morning. Never consider it exhausting. Now what does tire me out is flying in the 10000 range for 4 hours or so. But that is going to be the case whether passenger or pilot.

So what are you doing on your flights that make you exhausted after 2 hours of hand flying?
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Agreed. No autopilot in my -9A, and everyone who's flown with me right seat mentions just how responsive it is in pitch. But once familiar, it's wonderful how little stick pressure is needed for a small altitude correction, and the armrest is in a perfect spot for non-tiring control over a 3.5-hour leg. Sure, I'm deviating sometimes +/- 75 feet, but hand-flying it just keeps me engaged in the overall experience. For the same reasons, I never use cruise control in my car on a long trip. As EdFred mentions, trim the plane nicely and your input workload is reduced dramatically.

My EFIS supports autopilot, so it'd only be a matter of installing the servos, wiring, and configuring the system, but I'm in no hurry to fit it.
 
You learn that Atis/weather reports along your route that note "sky clear below 12,000" and "visibility greater than the 10" can be widely misleading at altitude. In NorCal, dust, haze, smoke will frequently drop vis. to 3 miles or less, even with all the weather reports calling for severe clear.
 
No autopilot in my plane. The only time I have flown with an autopilot it felt like I was a fish swimming. Left 5 degrees right 5 degrees left 5 degrees right 5 degrees...ok that's enough of that.

So in my 4 figures of flight time I have less than 0.5 with an autopilot. I will say this, if you are always going to fly with an autopilot then odds are that not flying with one is going to always being exhausting because you are never going to step up your game.

It's like always playing the computer at chess on level 1. You're never going to get better if you always leave it on level 1.
 
Lndwarrior said:
You learn that Atis/weather reports along your route that note "sky clear below 12,000" and "visibility greater than the 10" can be widely misleading at altitude. In NorCal, dust, haze, smoke will frequently drop vis. to 3 miles or less, even with all the weather reports calling for severe clear.
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Same here in the east except it’s from haze and humidity...:yes:
 
EdFred said:
No autopilot in my plane. The only time I have flown with an autopilot it felt like I was a fish swimming. Left 5 degrees right 5 degrees left 5 degrees right 5 degrees...ok that's enough of that.

So in my 4 figures of flight time I have less than 0.5 with an autopilot. I will say this, if you are always going to fly with an autopilot then odds are that not flying with one is going to always being exhausting because you are never going to step up your game.
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:rolleyes:

.5 with ONE autopilot.....

I saw one electric car that had a dented fender, so I guess they are all like that.
 
Zeldman said:
:rolleyes:

.5 with ONE autopilot.....

I saw one electric car that had a dented fender, so I guess they are all like that.
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Oh I wasn't saying they are all that way or that in influences my airplane purchases. The planes I've had just haven't had them and I don't really feel the need for one
 
MIFlyer said:
Yes, but kelsi airport is sometimes hard to spot the first few times.

Just flew Krnt Kkls Krnt last night to pick the kids up from grandmas house


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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Yes, but my CFI always had his students do the XC dual before he signed off on doing it solo. So, I had been there before. And, I didn't fly the route down I-5. A bit out of the way for a more direct route (I-5 runs a little east).
 
I learned not to drink a lot of coffee before the flight that you think should only be __ hours long. Shortly thereafter I learned to always have something to pee in on board. I learned that un-forecasted* weather will make your primary and secondary fuel stops IFR and you have to chose a spot in the middle of no where. I learned to carry a flashlight with a red lens and/or a flashlight that isn't a reasonable facsimile to the sun in order to check for icing on the wings in the middle of the night. I learned to NOT carry a passenger who likes to eat sunflower seeds in your plane. They get all over the place. I learned that you can only hear certain engine noises at night, over water or otherwise un-landable area and that the noise cannot be duplicated. I learned that you can fly a long distance before you realize your alternator isn't charging. I learned that if you want to fly cross country on a holiday that its much harder to find a mechanic to fix your airplane.

* I learned the un-forecasted isn't in the POA spelling dictionary but um-forecasted is a suggestion in lieu of.
 
EdFred said:
For those that say hand flying is exhausting, what are you doing to make it so? I have flown every flight except one by hand, and I am never exhausted becuase I'm the one maintaining course and altitude. Use trim, balance the fuel tanks, and the plane more or less flies itself. 1000 mile days, IMC, below zero, above 100, night afternoon, morning. Never consider it exhausting. Now what does tire me out is flying in the 10000 range for 4 hours or so. But that is going to be the case whether passenger or pilot.

So what are you doing on your flights that make you exhausted after 2 hours of hand flying?
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For many people, fatigue sets in from noise and/or mild hypoxia
 
TimRF79 said:
Often I have read that "you learn a lot" on a x-country flight.
Could someone please elaborate what you learn on those trips?
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Self reliance. When it gets bumpy or busy the onlyone in control of the airplane is you.

Conflict management. When some douchebag 135 guy wants to screw with you in the pattern? You have to deal with it. And you as a student probably know the regs and procedures better than the D-bag!
 
Timbeck2 said:
I learned not to drink a lot of coffee before the flight that you think should only be __ hours long.
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I learned that aviation is the only morning activity where if I haven’t had my coffee I’m not a complete prick. Just a mild prick.

Which led to the same lesson as Tim, modified. Bring the coffee along. Drink it no more than one hour before landing. Make sure the container it’s in is absolutely sealed.

I also learned on the first few non-solo XCs that muttering “Oh, ****!” to yourself in cruise because you remembered something at home that you forgot (or whatever non-aviation related thing), does not make your passengers happy and super confident about their decision to climb aboard your tiny Cessna Of Death. :)
 
Ben2k9 said:
My solo XC was 300nm each way too and I did the exact same thing. Slaved autopilot to GPS flight plan and had VFR flight following and sat back and enjoyed the flight.

Most of all my other flights involved flying by hand and so thats something I get plenty of. But 300nm is exhausting to fly by hand especially when you’re turning around and flying back same day. As it turns out, the autopilot did start acting up and so I had to hand fly for a while on the ride back. I decided to trouble shoot and pulled the fuse on the AP and when it booted back up it worked fine.

The solo XC is completely up to you to make it, so up until then it’s been easy to turn to the CFI and ask what to do, but on the solo you’re forced to solve problems on your own. Something new may pop up.

To the original poster: what kind of plane do you have? I’m 6’6” too
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I fly a Bellanca Viking, barely fit in. On big bumps in the air, I hit my head.
But at that size, only few planes will fit....
 
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