Common Sense CFI

C

comanche

Pre-Flight
Joined
Jan 30, 2012
Messages
95
Location
Copperas Cove, Texas
Display Name
Display name:
Comanche
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.

 
comanche said:
"When you get you lift off from KGTU, ask the tower for flight following and you will not have to contact Austin Approach. "
Click to expand...
If tower handles that, do it one step earlier, at first contact before cleared to taxi. I fall back to picking in the air only if tower does not do it, e.g. when overlaying Approarch issues discrete codes.
 
BrianNC said:
What would you say to do that?
Click to expand...

At Nashua, we just say "Cardinal 52667 is at the electric ramp with Alpha, request advisories to Sanford, S-F-M, 5500, ready to taxi" and they come back with a taxi clearance and "your code is on request". While you're halfway through your taxi they'll call back and give you the transponder code (and departure frequency, which is always 124.9). After takeoff you contact "Departure" aka approach and they already have your info, so you just give you altitude on initial call up like an IFR or class C departure would. Basically the whole process is like a Class C departure.

Not all towers are willing/able to do this. I know MVY was confused by our request and just gave us a frequency for Cape Approach to contact in the air. Since Nashua also underlies part of the Manchester Class C airspace, and is a RADAR tower, I'm not sure if that factors in as well.
 
BrianNC said:
What would you say to do that?
Click to expand...
I feel guilty not knowing the phraseology, but I say "Cessna 150 N2966V at Bode ramp, for VFR departure with initial heading 170 altitude 6500, request to taxi for takeoff, aaaand we would like to get flight following, if possible". I started doing it after they asked me if I would like flight following. Before that, I followed advice in an ancient edition of Bob Gardner book that I have, and asked the Approach after tower released me. Since I fumble on the radio, usually this led to getting a code starting with 0, then after crossing the Charlie Approach asked me if I wanted to talk to Center, and only then I received my 4xxx code. These days they give me 4xxx righ away. I do not remember how it works in Santa Fe though. They are Delta, but they now have a radar and issue codes themselves. Strangely though, they used to have a Clearance frequency, which was discontinued for a while, and these days they do not use Ground anymore either. Because of these changes it may be different. Still, the rule of thumb is to declare intentions early and often.
 
I teach computerized flight planning to my private students once I'm confident they can do it the old fashioned way (usually by the night dual X-C for most guys). Like they say , train how you plan to fly after training.
 
zaitcev said:
I feel guilty not knowing the phraseology, but I say "Cessna 150 N2966V at Bode ramp, for VFR departure with initial heading 170 altitude 6500, request to taxi for takeoff, aaaand we would like to get flight following, if possible". I started doing it after they asked me if I would like flight following. Before that, I followed advice in an ancient edition of Bob Gardner book that I have, and asked the Approach after tower released me. Since I fumble on the radio, usually this led to getting a code starting with 0, then after crossing the Charlie Approach asked me if I wanted to talk to Center, and only then I received my 4xxx code. These days they give me 4xxx righ away. I do not remember how it works in Santa Fe though. They are Delta, but they now have a radar and issue codes themselves. Strangely though, they used to have a Clearance frequency, which was discontinued for a while, and these days they do not use Ground anymore either. Because of these changes it may be different. Still, the rule of thumb is to declare intentions early and often.
Click to expand...

At the present, SAF tower does not have access to the program that can grab a center code for VFR flight following as far as I know, so the procedure remains to contact ZAB once they give you a handoff and get your code from them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top