Long solo XC, Can't decide the route!

inav8r

Line Up and Wait
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Indiana, US
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Mike B.
I can't believe this. I'm sitting here doing the initial planning for my long XC tomorrow morning and I just can't decide which route I'm going to propose to my instructor. Each of them has at least one cool place that I want to fly near / over and at least one airport I really want to visit...

I never could have imagined that I'd be in this situation! LOL

My first trip I have planned is AID->BAK->OXD->AID. I will get to actually fly over some of the hills that southern Indiana has to offer. The BAK-OXD leg is actually pretty sparse and I imagine will be beautiful this time of year.

The next trip I have planned is AID->AOH->VES-AID. Its a little more tricky as I have to deal with another class delta close to AID, but I'll get to fly near/over Grand Lake, St Marys and Grand Lake state park in Ohio. I imagine it will be beautiful. It's a fairly large (5 mile by 3 mile) lake that should be easy to find along my route.

The last trip I'm considering is just a bit longer. It's from AID->DNV->LAF-AID. It will be challenging because my first leg will take me north of Indianapolis and all of the traffic associated with that. Not to mention that Lafayette has the chance of being busy - so that will provide and opportunity to test my skills.

I just can't decide!
 
My 2 cents is to make the easiest flight you can. You'll have LOTS of opportunity to challenge yourself later, and this'll seem like a lot longer flight than it is. I loved my solo long x-c, but I picked a route that pretty much just required following a big river, the ocean, and a big road. Have fun!
 
I have to concur with Joe. You can always make the flight take longer or divert some to see some more interesting things, but either way you'll have plenty of chances to do harder flights later.

On my own solo, I did KMTN - KOXB - Summit (forget the ident) but instead of flying straight line from OXB to summit I flew up the MD/DE coast and then over Dover - made the flight a LOT more fun and got some great pics. :)
 
I don't know your neighborhood, but here are a few things I'd look for to make it easy.

1. A controlled field for one or more landings gives you easy transitions from flight following to the tower.
2. An airport with a VOR on the field is easy to find using VOR tracking - as opposed to pilotage (which could be easy) or tracking OUT from a VOR to the airport.
3. Keep the leg from the last navigation aid/easy to see checkpoint to the airport as short as possible - to avoid getting off course and missing the airport.

At my club, we tend to fly the long XC as a direct course to the farthest point (100 NM away), then try to land at an airport along the way back more or less on the same course. That way you're covering territory that you've already seen on the way back - as opposed to a triangle where each leg is new territory. Also, our club requires that each student XC be flown with the instructor as dual first.

If you're more adventurous, feel free to try something tougher. This advice is designed to get you an easy ride. Joe is right - you can get braver later.
 
Interesting. My own instructor insisted that one of the airports on my long XC be one I'd never been to before, but not too far from one I had been too before. As a test of my ability to find new places, I guess. :)
 
Some folks at our club "cheat" a bit - they do the long XC there and back, and make the third landing at the other uncontrolled airport 2NM away from VAY (Flying W - N14) - then they make the 10 minute hop home. That seemed to be TOO cautious to me.
 
I agree with the others, make this as easy a flight as you can. My long solo XC was 4.6 hrs total Hobbs (Cessna 150), which at the time was by far the longest time I'd spent flying a plane in one day. I flew from New Bedford, MA, to Keene, NH, to Bridgeport, CT and back. I hadn't been to either Keene or Bridgeport before. I was grateful for a nice tailwind on the last leg home. It was hazy and warm and I was exhausted (but very happy!) at the end of that flight. I remember that flight better than my first solo.

Have fun!

Jeff
 
Sounds like the prevailing opinion to "make it easy"... I will venture to dissent. When I was doing my solo XCs I tried to make them as long and as challenging as possible. I felt, I'm gonna make mistakes, so now is the time to make them, while I'm flying with a kind of "safety net". If I make it too easy, I might miss out on some valuable learning experiences until after I have my ticket, when I won't have have those words "student pilot" to fall back on. Another thing was, not too many years ago the long solo XC had to be a total of 300nm instead of 150. I figured, if people could do it then, I can do it now. In the end I made fewer mistakes on my solo XCs than on my less-well-planned local flights to places like PTK, but I learned habits of careful flight planning that serve me well today, and I had a blast. If I had to do it over again, the only thing I would do differently is take the written and the checkride about two months earlier, instead of stretching things out the way I did.

Liz
 
azure said:
Another thing was, not too many years ago the long solo XC had to be a total of 300nm instead of 150.

Mine was the 300nm category. I would agree that you don't need to "make it the minimum", but I also wouldn't go out of my way to challenge myself either. I guess a downside of the now-shorter XC length requirement is that since flight time is shorter, there is less of a weather variable. By the time I got back to my home base on my long solo XC, the weather had gone downhill more than forecast - visibility was down to 5-6 miles and winds were a bit stronger than forecast - both near the limit to what my instructor would normally have been comfortable with me doing (he might not have let me leave if this had been forecast).

So IMHO, ok to challenge yourself, but just keep in mind that aviation has a way of introducing its own challenges!

Jeff
 
I am also of the school that says make the long XC as challenging as possible. After all, the XCs are not a test of flying, but of navigation. If you intend to travel by plane, get the chance to learn as much as you can before you are really on your own.

If you can plan a difficult XC and get it past your CFI, then you have learned how to plan it. Further, from the dual XCs, the CFI has seen how good your sense of direction and ability to match the view out the window to the sectional is.

I don't like the schools that require you to make your solo flights to places you went with the CFI. The first time you are totally on your own finding a new airport shouldn't be when you have a passenger.

The 100 miles out and stop on the way back also does nothing to prepare you for spending an entire day flying over new ground.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
SNIP
I remember that flight better than my first solo.

Have fun!

Jeff

Me too. I'd thought solo would be the highlight of my training, but next to the day I actually got my ticket, landing back home after my long solo x/c is the moment I remember most fondly.
 
Greebo said:
Interesting. My own instructor insisted that one of the airports on my long XC be one I'd never been to before, but not too far from one I had been too before. As a test of my ability to find new places, I guess. :)

I'd actually never even flown in that direction past Wilmington before my long cross country, much less been to the airports. Still, an airport is an airport, so long as you can find it :)
 
Joe Williams said:
Me too. I'd thought solo would be the highlight of my training, but next to the day I actually got my ticket, landing back home after my long solo x/c is the moment I remember most fondly.

For me it was the short solo XC - but it's the same concept. That feeling of "Hey, I can really do this - fly to a different airport, land, and bring it back in one piece."

And then ... my cell phone rang when I'd gotten about a mile from the airport. It seems the FSS had called looking for me .....

Whoops. Haven't forgotten to close a flight plan since.
 
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The Old Man said:
I don't like the schools that require you to make your solo flights to places you went with the CFI. The first time you are totally on your own finding a new airport shouldn't be when you have a passenger.

In defense of my club ....

1. They'd actually had a student or two who got lost on their first solo. Yup - flew out of the pattern and couldn't find home without help. Luckily in our area there's lots of help - right on the edge of PHL Bravo west, with Trenton north, McGuire east and lots of airports south.

2. As a general rule, if you hadn't flown an XC dual with the instructor just sitting there (maybe throwing an occasional hint), you weren't going ANYWHERE solo.
 
MSmith said:
Some folks at our club "cheat" a bit - they do the long XC there and back, and make the third landing at the other uncontrolled airport 2NM away from VAY (Flying W - N14) - then they make the 10 minute hop home. That seemed to be TOO cautious to me.

I ended up more or less doing that, Mark. My intent had been VAY-N51-MPO-VAY, but there was a TFR around NY that came within about of mile of N51. We agreed that avoing that airport was probably smart, and I ended up doing VAY-MPO-N81-VAY. At least I got to fly over my house on the last leg...
 
The Old Man said:
I don't like the schools that require you to make your solo flights to places you went with the CFI. The first time you are totally on your own finding a new airport shouldn't be when you have a passenger.
I guess you could say that my first CFI was of that school. He had nearly lost his ticket to a hapless student who dallied around at JXN until it was getting dark, then panicked and decided to make the trip home to DET IFR as in I Follow Roads. The road he decided to follow was I-94, east past Ann Arbor, past Ypsi,... anyone who knows Michigan can guess the rest. (Edited to add: for non-Michigan people, DTW is right off I-94.) He got himself vectored north to PTK before finally arriving back well after dark. (No, he didn't have a signoff to fly at night either.) So I understood my CFI's position, but I felt I would lose out on valuable learning experiences from that. In the end though, I decided to switch not over that, but because my first CFI couldn't get access to an airplane I would trust to do a solo XC in. It was a good decision I still feel, on both counts.

Liz
 
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After a teriffic cross wind landing and two new airport sign off lesson my instructor and I decided on the second route. I depart at 041300Z! There will hopefully be a post with pictures some time later in the afternoon!
 
Greebo said:
I have to concur with Joe. You can always make the flight take longer or divert some to see some more interesting things, but either way you'll have plenty of chances to do harder flights later.

On my own solo, I did KMTN - KOXB - Summit (forget the ident) but instead of flying straight line from OXB to summit I flew up the MD/DE coast and then over Dover - made the flight a LOT more fun and got some great pics. :)

I dissagree, fly to the airports with the best lookin babes...
 
Henning said:
I dissagree, fly to the airports with the best lookin babes...
Is that listed on AirNav? :)

--Kath
 
At least you had a choice! Where I got my ticket, there were so few airports that the options were very limited. I was in the school that said, throw 'em into new airports. I did fine, despite the forecast headwinds being tailwinds and vice versa (and, no, I didn't make a mistake on my planning).

I do have one piece of advice, though, if it's not too late. Be sure to move the microphone away from your mouth before you try to eat your PB&J sandwich.

Judy
 
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