STRUGGLING

April Evans said:
Hello, and thanks! I recently had carpal tunnel surgery and just flew again yesterday. Things are definitely starting to click! My instructor said that I am ready to do my cross country solo, so I am super excited for that! It is a little more daunting than my 3 takeoffs/landings solo, but excited. I do appreciate all of the advice. The fact that I am finally soloing says that it helped because I definitely did apply what was shared. Thank you!
Click to expand...
Cool. I think most folk find first cross country more memorable than first solo. I did. Have fun.
 
Good to hear that things are working out for you. Sometimes it just takes a bit of practice and perseverance to get things to fall into place. We all have/had various challenges in training and practice.
 
Man, I certainly relate to the original post...
Pilotage/navigation was by far my weakest area during PPL training. Now I'd consider it one of my stronger skills; 90% of my hours these days are XC flying (it's just more fun to GO SOMEWHERE!).

As a student it was really easy to just take off and get preoccupied on climbing out to the right altitude/heading, monitoring the gauges, looking for traffic etc. Focusing on those tasks seemed prudent given the oft quoted priority list: "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate"... Esp if there was any bumps/turbulence at all, I was white knuckle holding onto the stick and throwing "navigate" out the window as a problem for later.

But here's some things that helped me:
1) Track yourself with the precision you need to navigate safely; don't be overly precise when it's not needed. I used to obsess about knowing *exactly* where I was at all times. That sounds great in theory, but in reality total precision is not critical in most situations and just leads you to spending too much time preoccupied on the map. Focus on having a good idea of where you're at add more precision only when it's necessary (like if you don't want to accidentally fly into a nearby controlled airspace). There's a reason why the recommended waypoint spacing isn't every 1-2nm.
2) Do your pattern work at another airport (w/instructor signoff of course). Learning how to do navigation on short runs, like 15-20m to a nearby airport, opens the door to doing incrementally more navigation on longer runs. From me, flying from ARR to DKB is short, but it taught me how to take off and make a turn to the NW, following I-88 until I have the city in sight, and then hunt for the airport.
3) I fly over farms a lot with small towns, and I learned that it helps when you start to learn the towns. What used to be "Anonymous Farm Town - A" became "Rochelle", "Anonymous Farm Town - B" became Sterling Falls, etc.. That way when I'm flying west from DPA I don't have to look down at a map and know that Rochelle comes after DeKalb. That builds confidence.
4) Fly your XCs in MSFS/XPlane or another simulator. The geographic rendering is really solid these days so you can track landmarks and get a semi-realistic experience! I flew my solo XC like 5x in XPlane before I did it in real life, and that made it a breeze.
5) Write down the relevant ATC/approach frequency for the area you're in. If you do legitimately get lost you can always call them up, admit you're lost and get some guidance. Better yet, just pick up flight following after takeoff if you can and stay on the radio w/them the whole time!
6) Have a backup instrument onboard to get your location (Sentry or Stratus w/FF, GPS unit, VORs). Life is a lot more relaxed when you know you have a backup option if you really need it (but don't use it as a crutch unless you have to)
7) Doing a ground reference maneuver above a water tower to read the city name can work wonders. Now I do it just for fun ;)

Keep at it and you'll definitely pick up the skills. Don't worry about the hours you accrue on the way there, it's all valuable experience!
 
+1 on flying the XC in X-Plane or MSFS ahead of time. I did it with every solo XC and still do it most of the time when planning a flight to a new airport. You'll get a great feel for the terrain and landmarks along the route. If you don't have X-Plane/MSFS handy, geo-fs.com is an online, browser-based flight sim that works great for running the XC route.
 
Tom Wells said:
Man, I certainly relate to the original post...
Pilotage/navigation was by far my weakest area during PPL training. Now I'd consider it one of my stronger skills; 90% of my hours these days are XC flying (it's just more fun to GO SOMEWHERE!).

As a student it was really easy to just take off and get preoccupied on climbing out to the right altitude/heading, monitoring the gauges, looking for traffic etc. Focusing on those tasks seemed prudent given the oft quoted priority list: "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate"... Esp if there was any bumps/turbulence at all, I was white knuckle holding onto the stick and throwing "navigate" out the window as a problem for later.

But here's some things that helped me:
1) Track yourself with the precision you need to navigate safely; don't be overly precise when it's not needed. I used to obsess about knowing *exactly* where I was at all times. That sounds great in theory, but in reality total precision is not critical in most situations and just leads you to spending too much time preoccupied on the map. Focus on having a good idea of where you're at add more precision only when it's necessary (like if you don't want to accidentally fly into a nearby controlled airspace). There's a reason why the recommended waypoint spacing isn't every 1-2nm.
2) Do your pattern work at another airport (w/instructor signoff of course). Learning how to do navigation on short runs, like 15-20m to a nearby airport, opens the door to doing incrementally more navigation on longer runs. From me, flying from ARR to DKB is short, but it taught me how to take off and make a turn to the NW, following I-88 until I have the city in sight, and then hunt for the airport.
3) I fly over farms a lot with small towns, and I learned that it helps when you start to learn the towns. What used to be "Anonymous Farm Town - A" became "Rochelle", "Anonymous Farm Town - B" became Sterling Falls, etc.. That way when I'm flying west from DPA I don't have to look down at a map and know that Rochelle comes after DeKalb. That builds confidence.
4) Fly your XCs in MSFS/XPlane or another simulator. The geographic rendering is really solid these days so you can track landmarks and get a semi-realistic experience! I flew my solo XC like 5x in XPlane before I did it in real life, and that made it a breeze.
5) Write down the relevant ATC/approach frequency for the area you're in. If you do legitimately get lost you can always call them up, admit you're lost and get some guidance. Better yet, just pick up flight following after takeoff if you can and stay on the radio w/them the whole time!
6) Have a backup instrument onboard to get your location (Sentry or Stratus w/FF, GPS unit, VORs). Life is a lot more relaxed when you know you have a backup option if you really need it (but don't use it as a crutch unless you have to)
7) Doing a ground reference maneuver above a water tower to read the city name can work wonders. Now I do it just for fun ;)

Keep at it and you'll definitely pick up the skills. Don't worry about the hours you accrue on the way there, it's all valuable experience!
Click to expand...
Thank you for the encouragement! Things are starting to click and come together. I was being my own worst enemy with getting to worked up about every little thing. I am learning to not second guess myself, to chill, and just fly the plane. I've got a lot to learn. But I am loving it! I am do glad I found this site. Everyone has been so helpful and encouraging.
 
Hi @April Evans, my solution to the same issue was installing my own simulator stack (when I earn enough points I'd post the image). Decent multi-core desktop, NVIDIA RTX GPU, plenty of memory, control/radio/ap panels, rudder pedals and a yoke, and MSFS 2020 and/or XPlane. Microsoft FS has stunning graphics and areal features which rival the reality. I literally can match what I see in real flights in my area with what I see in the simulator. You could also match it to the sectionals. So, little by little you learn the area by visual references. Both simulators also have the ability to connect to Garmin Pilot or Foreflight, so you can track your course in it. Although flying magenta line is not something you'd want to be attached to at this stage. MSFS 2020 has it's downsides too, especially the sensitivity of the controls is hard or impossible to tune to what you'd expect in a real airplane.
 
Hi! Sorry for the late response. Thanks for the info.
 
Following this post. I'm definitely enjoying watching the progress. Please keep us up to date @April Evans
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top