A couple more questions once more

[bdoss2006]

Alrighty, I have a few more unrelated questions, then I won’t to kinda clarify that I understand all the mountain flying advice I received a few days ago in a separate post, then I’ll hush for a while. So here’s the few unrelated questions.

1. So how do y'all flight plan as far as time enroute or more importantly fuel required for a simple sightseeing flight or going out and doing maneuvers since you’ll be flying at lower airspeeds and doing multiple climbs and descents. With a standard direct flight, of course there are performance profiles in the POH that outline the fuel burn, but that’s for a straightforward cruise at a higher RPM. How do you plan fuel burn and stuff if it’s a more random flight with climbs and descents at a lower airspeed and RPM?

2. On that note, how do yall navigate for things like that? Say you want to go look at a house, in Foreflight you can enter and address and get a gps waypoint for it, so just do that? Also let’s say you need to climb before you get to it to clear terrain or obstacles, how would you calculate when to descend? Just the same as if you were going to an airport? (3 miles per 1000 ft, or my favorite do a 500fpm descent starting at however many minutes you are away based on how much you need to descend?)

3. If y’all are going cross country to an airport, do you just simply takeoff and hit direct to the airport and leave it at that, or do you do a flight plan with waypoints and stuff beforehand. This one is asking about in the real world, not a testing situation.

4. Lastly, if you are using GPS on foreflight in an airplane without a GPS, can you just use the built in GPS to navigate or do you really need a sentry or the likes? That one doesn’t really apply to me, just a curiosity.

If someone doesn’t care to answer each of these it would make me feel more confident for sure. TIA!

 

[Tools]

1. I use a conservative fuel burn per hour… 10 gal/hr in dads o-300 172, a clock and don’t go below half tank.

2. Same, and set a joker fuel (time). If that point arrives, I make sure my primary mission is simply arriving at my destination, all secondary missions are suspended.

3. Yep. Only use waypoints to avoid TFRs, restricted or prohibited, or airspace I simply don’t wanna traverse.

4. A cell phone works for me. Use that with foreflight or similar as a means to a aero sectional, then pilotage my way along. A line or geo positioning is just a bonus. I have a sentry, use it when wx is dicey. That’s about it.

 

[asicer]

1. So how do y'all flight plan as far as time enroute or more importantly fuel required for a simple sightseeing flight or going out and doing maneuvers since you’ll be flying at lower airspeeds and doing multiple climbs and descents. With a standard direct flight, of course there are performance profiles in the POH that outline the fuel burn, but that’s for a straightforward cruise at a higher RPM. How do you plan fuel burn and stuff if it’s a more random flight with climbs and descents at a lower airspeed and RPM?

Those don't usually last very long, maybe an hour or so. In something like a 172SP, the most it will ever burn is 16GPH if you forget to pull the knobs back so fill the tanks and go fly.

2. On that note, how do yall navigate for things like that?

Pilotage. Look at the landmarks.

3. If y’all are going cross country to an airport, do you just simply takeoff and hit direct to the airport and leave it at that, or do you do a flight plan with waypoints and stuff beforehand. This one is asking about in the real world, not a testing situation.

Depends on where and how far, but most of the time I do use waypoints for the same reason as @Tools

4. Lastly, if you are using GPS on foreflight in an airplane without a GPS, can you just use the built in GPS to navigate or do you really need a sentry or the likes?

VFR, I'd use the iPad GPS but mostly to supplement. Primary is looking out for waypoints. IFR is a whole 'nuther story.

 

[bdoss2006]

1. I use a conservative fuel burn per hour… 10 gal/hr in dads o-300 172, a clock and don’t go below half tank.

2. Same, and set a joker fuel (time). If that point arrives, I make sure my primary mission is simply arriving at my destination, all secondary missions are suspended.

3. Yep. Only use waypoints to avoid TFRs, restricted or prohibited, or airspace I simply don’t wanna traverse.

4. A cell phone works for me. Use that with foreflight or similar as a means to a aero sectional, then pilotage my way along. A line or geo positioning is just a bonus. I have a sentry, use it when wx is dicey. That’s about it.

Do you use actual GPS waypoints, or just a user defined waypoint?

 

[dmspilot]

1. So how do y'all flight plan as far as time enroute or more importantly fuel required for a simple sightseeing flight or going out and doing maneuvers since you’ll be flying at lower airspeeds and doing multiple climbs and descents. With a standard direct flight, of course there are performance profiles in the POH that outline the fuel burn, but that’s for a straightforward cruise at a higher RPM. How do you plan fuel burn and stuff if it’s a more random flight with climbs and descents at a lower airspeed and RPM?

Fuel = Gallons per Hour * Time

4. Lastly, if you are using GPS on foreflight in an airplane without a GPS, can you just use the built in GPS to navigate or do you really need a sentry or the likes? That one doesn’t really apply to me, just a curiosity.

The non-cellular iPads don't come with GPS so an external receiver is required if that's what you're using. Otherwise, you may get better reception with one, but it usually isn't necessary. Of course, a Sentry has many other features in addition to having a GPS receiver.

 

[Dana]

1. My plane holds fuel for about 2½ hours but my butt is good for about 1½ hours before I need to get out and stretch, so fuel is rarely an issue even if I'm doing acro. On a long XC most of the flight is at cruise power so the extra fuel for takeoff and climb (I don't cruise very high) isn't much.

2. On rare occasions I'll set an off-airport destination in Avare and go to it, but more often I know generally where I'm going so I'll just head on that direction and look for landmarks. I don't plan the descent; I wait until destination is in sight and then just push the nose down and judge it visually. But again I rarely fly high (1000-2000' AGL is typical) and my plane is slow.

3. Direct, unless as others said I want to avoid airspace in which case I may set an intermediate waypoint, which will just be a visual pick on the chart in approximately the right place. On a long flight I'll often plan to pass over or near other airports just in case I need it want to land sooner. But I also use a lot of pilotage, following highways or rivers, especially in less populated areas.

4. I don't have any installed navigation equipment in my plane, just my phone and/or tablet running Avare (not everybody uses Foreflight!). Just their internal GPS, though I did use a cheap consumer grade Bluetooth GPS receiver in one plane where I couldn't get a signal. And occasionally nothing but a paper map, just for fun and to keep me honest.

 

[midlifeflyer]

May I ask what stage of training you are at? and where?

Alrighty, I have a few more unrelated questions, then I won’t to kinda clarify that I understand all the mountain flying advice I received a few days ago in a separate post, then I’ll hush for a while. So here’s the few unrelated questions.

1. So how do y'all flight plan as far as time enroute or more importantly fuel required for a simple sightseeing flight or going out and doing maneuvers since you’ll be flying at lower airspeeds and doing multiple climbs and descents. With a standard direct flight, of course there are performance profiles in the POH that outline the fuel burn, but that’s for a straightforward cruise at a higher RPM. How do you plan fuel burn and stuff if it’s a more random flight with climbs and descents at a lower airspeed and RPM?

The main point is that time = fuel. I generally plan for an hour reserve based on the worst cruise fuel burn I expect to have during the flight.

2. On that note, how do yall navigate for things like that? Say you want to go look at a house, in Foreflight you can enter and address and get a gps waypoint for it, so just do that? Also let’s say you need to climb before you get to it to clear terrain or obstacles, how would you calculate when to descend? Just the same as if you were going to an airport? (3 miles per 1000 ft, or my favorite do a 500fpm descent starting at however many minutes you are away based on how much you need to descend?)

It depends. And it really doesn't matter. Sometimes, I'll create a user waypoint. Sometimes an address. Sometimes just a pencil mark on a chart. But primarily, and even with any of those, it's all about looking out the window. Basic Pilotage 101. If you can't see it, exactly what are you signhtseeing?

Pilot to passenger: "If you look at FXNAM, you'll see the high school I went to."​

Really?

3. If y’all are going cross country to an airport, do you just simply takeoff and hit direct to the airport and leave it at that, or do you do a flight plan with waypoints and stuff beforehand. This one is asking about in the real world, not a testing situation.

Now you are in my rant area. The problem with cross country training at the student level isn't all those waypoints. It's CFIs not explaining we're overdoing it so we have practice. To answer your question, again, it depends. I'm not willing to fly into a mountain just because the D→ magenta line sends me there. I'm not going to bust a Bravo or a hot SUA by not taking airspace into consideration. Sure, if everything is clear, ultimately it's Direct, although I always have a flight plan in the box, never a naked Direct To.

4. Lastly, if you are using GPS on foreflight in an airplane without a GPS, can you just use the built in GPS to navigate or do you really need a sentry or the likes? That one doesn’t really apply to me, just a curiosity.

If you have one you can, although the built-in GPS is not quite as robust as being connected to the airplane's panel or having an external portable. I made the no-internal-GPS decision with my first iPad (15+ years ago) and bought a GPS puck instead.

 

[MauleSkinner]

May I ask what stage of training you are at?

Which directly relates to the first question…

1. So how do y'all flight plan as far as time enroute or more importantly fuel required for a simple sightseeing flight or going out and doing maneuvers since you’ll be flying at lower airspeeds and doing multiple climbs and descents. With a standard direct flight, of course there are performance profiles in the POH that outline the fuel burn, but that’s for a straightforward cruise at a higher RPM. How do you plan fuel burn and stuff if it’s a more random flight with climbs and descents at a lower airspeed and RPM?

The same way you plan time and fuel to the practice area and back to practice maneuvers.

 

[midlifeflyer]

Which directly relates to the first question…

The same way you plan time and fuel to the practice area and back to practice maneuvers.

Might relate to the second question too. I think it relates to all of them.

2. On that note, how do yall navigate for things like that?

 

[bdoss2006]

Might relate to the second question too. I think it relates to all of them.

I’m a sport pilot, but have only been for less than two weeks. I mostly just wanted to ask how other people do each of these things, and see if I am doing it similar to the replies I get

 

[murphey]

Ask your CFI to teach you the many ways & tools to navigate. I have an installed & certified GPS (with an HSI), an iPad with GPS, one radio dedicated to VORs, a wonky DME that really needs to be removed, an ADF that's great to listen to the Rockies lose another baseball game and (usually current) paper maps. I dislike single point of failure. Not only that, but unless I'm going more than 4 hours away from home, I pretty well know where I am by looking out the window. Which is how I do 90% of my VFR flying. Don't forget you also have a compass sitting right there, easy to see, that will also help you navigate.

If I'm in the mountains the iPad GPS is critical but not for flight planning - I have the all the Colorado passes as waypoints and note which ones NOT TO TAKE! For example, Alamosa to back to Denver area. From the air, there appear to be multiple routes across the Rockies. Wrong. Very wrong.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

1. So how do y'all flight plan as far as time enroute or more importantly fuel required for a simple sightseeing flight or going out and doing maneuvers since you’ll be flying at lower airspeeds and doing multiple climbs and descents. With a standard direct flight, of course there are performance profiles in the POH that outline the fuel burn, but that’s for a straightforward cruise at a higher RPM. How do you plan fuel burn and stuff if it’s a more random flight with climbs and descents at a lower airspeed and RPM?

Get to know your airplane. In my Mooney, I cruise at 65% LOP and burn 12gph in cruise. Each leg I burn about an additional 5 gallons for taxi, takeoff, and landing and I like at least an hour reserve on VFR flights.

So, if I have let's say an hour and a half "simple sightseeing flight" planned, I need 12 gallons for the reserve, 18 for the flight, and 5 for additional taxi and climb fuel for a total of 35 gallons on board to start. If I'm really that low, maybe I'll also set a "check fuel and/or head back now" type of alarm on my watch so it buzzes on my wrist to remind me I'm having too much fun, but it's also extremely rare for me to take off with minimum fuel for that sort of a flight.

Pay attention on every flight to how much fuel you burn, preferably with a totalizer so it's not just a guess, and go from there.

2. On that note, how do yall navigate for things like that? Say you want to go look at a house, in Foreflight you can enter and address and get a gps waypoint for it, so just do that? Also let’s say you need to climb before you get to it to clear terrain or obstacles, how would you calculate when to descend? Just the same as if you were going to an airport? (3 miles per 1000 ft, or my favorite do a 500fpm descent starting at however many minutes you are away based on how much you need to descend?)

You can enter an address in ForeFlight. Most of the time if I'm going to look at a house, I already know where it is and have driven to it on the ground so it's simple pilotage to get there if you know the major roadways in the area.

If you need to climb, climb. If you need to descend, it sounds like you already know two methods of calculating it. Plus, you can always just pick a descent that looks about right and adjust as necessary. Nobody is going to care if your descent path isn't quite straight. There's a LOT of ways to skin that cat.

3. If y’all are going cross country to an airport, do you just simply takeoff and hit direct to the airport and leave it at that, or do you do a flight plan with waypoints and stuff beforehand. This one is asking about in the real world, not a testing situation.

As with so many things in aviation, it depends. I don't just take off and hit direct, I do start with an airport-to-airport flight plan on the iPad when I'm first planning the flight. Then, I look for terrain, obstacles, airspace, weather, or anything else I need to maneuver around along the way and add waypoints accordingly. When I get in the plane, I beam the flight plan from the iPad to the panel via FlightStream 510, or if I'm in the jet I have to enter the waypoints one by one by hand like a peasant.

4. Lastly, if you are using GPS on foreflight in an airplane without a GPS, can you just use the built in GPS to navigate or do you really need a sentry or the likes? That one doesn’t really apply to me, just a curiosity.

Built in is fine. Just stay aware of where you are as if you had no GPS like the bad old days, because if that is your sole source of navigation *and* charts and it decides to overheat and shut down, you're gonna be lost. On a related note, make sure you turn on the feature in ForeFlight to warn you of an impending overheat: More->Settings->Preferences->Alerts->Device Temperature Alerts.

 

[rockyfatcat]

I have a couple ‘rule of thumb’ equations that I use. My aircraft had a simple way to quickly determine 1 hour fuel left, and I never want to burn into that hour.

I have other simple W&B, max gross weight, airspeed & fuel burn, correct for my airframe.

Lastly an iPad with foreflight & the sentry will give you a really great situational awareness. I routinely fly under the class B shelves and dogleg around parts of the same class B boundaries.

My plan is to fly 500 ft under the shelf and 1 nm horizontally away from the controlled airspace.

Foreflight has onscreen visual, & audible alerts when you are approaching controlled airspace. It only takes a few seconds to plug in a direct to airport and another quick swipe to enter a dogleg waypoint to stay clear of the airspace. If you enter a flight plan, foreflight will give you their magenta line and graphics indicating your position relative to your course.

I’ll be flying my 2nd aircraft shortly and it has a (new to me) all Garmin IFR suite. Which means an all new stuff that I’ll need to learn. Undoubtably I’ll be flying with both while learning the new stuff.