Suggestions needed

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vkhosid

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Hey guys, so here's the thing.

I've scheduled my night time XC with my instructor for next thursday, and the instructor says to me "Pick a direction, figure out a flight plan, and we'll go."...well, actually he said two directions, in case first choice has poor weather.

That's why I'm here. I'm looking for suggestions. First I was thinking either Monterrey, or Santa Rosa. I figure one of them is bound to have good weather the night that we fly. What are your opinions on this? Perhaps there are better airports to go to for one reason or another?

What says you?
 
Ha...yes...should have added....I'm in california, and departing from KLVK
 
Pick a couple places you think you'd normally fly to once you finish your checkride.
 
Realistically, (well, at this point anyway) I dont think I'd venture too far from the bay area. That's why I was thinking either Monterrey or Santa Rosa. I suppose Watsonville is an option and any other airports in that particular area. My real concern would be that I get sufficient practice looking up the various frequencies I should be talking to at various stages of the flight...seeing as how i'm not too confident with that yet.
 
vkhosid said:
Realistically, (well, at this point anyway) I dont think I'd venture too far from the bay area. That's why I was thinking either Monterrey or Santa Rosa. I suppose Watsonville is an option and any other airports in that particular area. My real concern would be that I get sufficient practice looking up the various frequencies I should be talking to at various stages of the flight...seeing as how i'm not too confident with that yet.
Click to expand...

Look up the frequencies before you leave the ground...this should be a part of preflight planning.

Bob Gardner
 
bobmrg said:
Look up the frequencies before you leave the ground...this should be a part of preflight planning.

Bob Gardner
Click to expand...
:yes: Write all of the frequencies down that way you don't have to fumble mid-flight through charts or Foreflight to look them up.
 
jordane93 said:
.... Foreflight....
Click to expand...

Speaking of which... (I know this spawns another topic but...) I have all the charts and stuff with me, but always have my cell phone in my pocket. The problem is that it's an android, and from my knowledge, Foreflight is not available . Are there any alternatives to FF for android? So far I haven't been able to find any. Granted, I haven't looked hard
 
vkhosid said:
Speaking of which... (I know this spawns another topic but...) I have all the charts and stuff with me, but always have my cell phone in my pocket. The problem is that it's an android, and from my knowledge, Foreflight is not available . Are there any alternatives to FF for android? So far I haven't been able to find any. Granted, I haven't looked hard
Click to expand...

Garmin has a free 30 day trial
Avare is decent and free
 
One more thing.
Getting all of the pertinent information prior to the flight is a good idea

What is the pattern direction where you are going if it is uncontrolled? (I seem to always forget this one)
What is pattern altitude?
Do they have a designated calmwind runway?
Call FSS if you want a lot of info quickly and easily.

I used to forget to get this type information and it is a pain to be organizing that info 10 miles out. Even on foreflight. Now I write every thing down on piece of paper and use it for that flight's reference.
 
I downloaded avare for android and just use the VFR sectional for areas in which I fly
 
For flight planning, I really get a lot of use out of pilot lounge. I think that was free too.
 
Read that A/FD carefully. My CFI liked to take students on night XCs to an airport that uses a different freq to turn on the lights. The sectional only shows the CTAF, you have to find the PCL freq in the A/FD. That was a chance for the CFI to play "gotcha".
 
Dump the toys.

Avare is much better than it used to be, but you need to know how to confidently plan a flight without any crutch.

For a student cross-country, go into the Central Valley. North and south are your two directions. Weather hangs around mountains, and you're done with them 5 miles east of town that way.

Monterey (only one R -- two is on the Mexican gulf coast, and it is not at all a nice place) is a fairly sleepy Class C that you have to cross a lot of mountains and deal with San Jose traffic to get to. If you really want to go that way, Hollister is a better target.

But, I think you should look 50 miles north (Sacramento? Talk about easy night navigation! It's clearly visible from Altamont Pass at night, and KSAC is very friendly), and 50 miles south or southeast. Los Banos? Castle (wanna land on a 12000 foot runway?)?

Save the nice places for daytime when you can see them, as well as the marine layer. Dumpy central valley airports are really useful for student cross countries.

It's not at all unusual that every airport without mountains between it and the Bay is in IMC (that includes Santa Rosa all the way to Hollister), and Monterey is very, very often IFR at night.
 
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I would also vote for Hollister or SAC or something in the Central Valley.
I did my first XC to Chowchilla, but perhaps this one would be too 'sleepy' for a destination with frequencies challenge hence some controlled airport around Sacramento would probably be best.
 
Don't count on being able to get into WVI or MRY VFR at night. Almost every night has been low overcast for the last several months.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
One more thing.
Getting all of the pertinent information prior to the flight is a good idea

What is the pattern direction where you are going if it is uncontrolled? (I seem to always forget this one)
What is pattern altitude?
Do they have a designated calmwind runway?
Call FSS if you want a lot of info quickly and easily.

I used to forget to get this type information and it is a pain to be organizing that info 10 miles out. Even on foreflight. Now I write every thing down on piece of paper and use it for that flight's reference.
Click to expand...

From shortly after I got my PPL, I would always just print an approach plate or two from any airport of interest (origin, destination, potential diversion) as my primary in-flight reference.

This was well before I started any IFR training, but the plates always seemed pretty perfect, as they include frequencies, runway numbers, and map in an easy package. I'd write my pre-flight information (TAF, pattern alt and direction, NOTAMS) on the relevant chart, and flip through to it when I got myself in "arrival mode".

Plus, it took me a little while to feel comfortable navigating entirely by pilotage when it was my first time taking a given trip (central Pennsylvania can kind of blend together) so liked the fact that if I got turned around, there was some kind of (usually VOR) radio reference to save me.

I always had a sectional too of course, and used that for primary en-route guidance, but near an airport liked the layout of a (blown up to full page size) plate better, even VFR.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I've looked it over and thought about it, and have settled on 3 possible scenarios.

1) Monterey
2) Santa Rosa
3) Hollister

My plan is to plan out each of these routes from LVK and make a game-time decision after checking the weather.

My follow-up question is this, however:
I was looking at skyvector just to get an idea of what I've got ahead of me, and found it fairly straightforward to find/designate waypoints to both Santa Rosa and Monterey. However, Hollister seems to be a bit of a challenge. I keep staring at the chart and really cant find/decide on any usable waypoints between livermore and hollister. So far, the only think that I've found on the route would the the Lick Observatory roughly halfway (25ish NM). This concerns me, however, because I don't expect much (any) lighting around the area.

Any other suggestions/ideas that I haven't spotted/overlooked?

Thanks again!
 
As I am unfamiliar with the area (have only flown O69/Petaluma to MRY/Monterey, about ten years ago), I have no concrete suggestions.

I like your instructor's style though - not just spoon feeding you.

Have fun with it, gather the relevant information and have it ready to use in an organized way, and have fun!
 
SCCutler said:
As I am unfamiliar with the area (have only flown O69/Petaluma to MRY/Monterey, about ten years ago), I have no concrete suggestions.

I like your instructor's style though - not just spoon feeding you.

Have fun with it, gather the relevant information and have it ready to use in an organized way, and have fun!
Click to expand...

Organizing the information isn't really the difficult part...it's the "picking appropriate points along the way that stand out in the dark" that's the difficult part. :yes:
 
For a night time XC put the odds on your favor. I'd look to a well lighted airport with a bit longer runway. Look over the Notams early to check for issues that may effect the flight. I'll take a nice PAPI or VASI too.

Pay attention to enroute terrain, look over some reasonable alternate airports. Depending on your training, the instructor may say, 'let's go to this place instead'.
 
sourdough44 said:
For a night time XC put the odds on your favor. I'd look to a well lighted airport with a bit longer runway. Look over the Notams early to check for issues that may effect the flight. I'll take a nice PAPI or VASI too.

Pay attention to enroute terrain, look over some reasonable alternate airports. Depending on your training, the instructor may say, 'let's go to this place instead'.
Click to expand...

The instructions he gave me were quite simple..."Pick two or three places in different directions that you want to fly to, plan the route, and depending on weather, we'll pick one and go." Unless something strange happens, I doubt he'd pick a completely different place.
 
Also, the only airports I show that are enroute to CVH are SJC (waaaaaay off in the distance), RHV (kinda off in the distance), and E16 (also a ways away). So I trying not to rely on runways for guidance. Also, there aren't really any VORs in the direction i'm heading. the closest one is SNS (which I don't think does me any good either).

Any other suggestions for waypoints to use?
 
vkhosid said:
Also, the only airports I show that are enroute to CVH are SJC (waaaaaay off in the distance), RHV (kinda off in the distance), and E16 (also a ways away). So I trying not to rely on runways for guidance. Also, there aren't really any VORs in the direction i'm heading. the closest one is SNS (which I don't think does me any good either).

Any other suggestions for waypoints to use?
Click to expand...
You don't HAVE to go direct...
 
How is flying into KSNS at night? Is the weather decent in the evenings this time of year?
 
In my experience any of the airports near the coast WVI, OAR, MRY, SNS can have the fog roll in early evening. In my experience the chance of a clear night is better this time of year than in the summer.
I check the weather every day for a week before a flight to try to get a feel for the trends.
E16 and CVH are over the first hill and often are clear when the coast is socked in.
I recently flew from CVH to HWD and there was a lot of sparsely populated area with few successful emergency landing opportunities between CVH and RHV but lots of lights after that. Hollister is a big town and I suspect you could see it from quite a distance away on a clear night.
Good luck and have fun.
 
I'm sure it's a reading comprehension thing on my part, but I missed the home airport. From where are you starting your flight?

Edit: It was a reading comprehension thing! Just saw that you're leaving from KLVK.

There's a good chance that Monterey and Watsonville will have low ceilings due to the marine layer. Hollister might be a good candidate.

If you're coming from the North to Hollister, you've got Morgan Hill and Gilroy, both of which will be pretty obvious at night. You should also be able to see the town of Hollister to the South of the airport. I've never been to Hollister at night, so I can't really comment on how visible the airport is at night

I fly out of San Jose International (KSJC), a moderately busy class C, and the easiest way for me to find it at night is to look for the large dark area in the middle of all the bright lights of San Jose.

Have you considered Stockton or Modesto? Both are in the Central Valley, so the marine layer likely won't be a problem. Both are near fairly large, well-lit cities, so the navigation should be easy, and Modesto even has a VOR.
 
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jimhorner said:
I'm sure it's a reading comprehension thing on my part, but I missed the home airport. From where are you starting your flight?

Edit: It was a reading comprehension thing! Just saw that you're leaving from KLVK.

There's a good chance that Monterey and Watsonville will have low ceilings due to the marine layer. Hollister might be a good candidate.

If you're coming from the North to Hollister, you've got Morgan Hill and Gilroy, both of which will be pretty obvious at night. You should also be able to see the town of Hollister to the South of the airport. I've never been to Hollister at night, so I can't really comment on how visible the airport is at night

I fly out of San Jose International (KSJC), a moderately busy class C, and the easiest way for me to find it at night is to look for the large dark area in the middle of all the bright lights of San Jose.

Have you considered Stockton or Modesto? Both are in the Central Valley, so the marine layer likely won't be a problem. Both are near fairly large, well-lit cities, so the navigation should be easy, and Modesto even has a VOR.
Click to expand...

I've actually done my daytime xc klvk-kcpu-kmod...and that took me directly over stockton. Personally, I'd like to get to an area that I haven't flown yet...also, as with modesto, I was thinking salinas because it has a VOR as well....obviously if weather is ****ty, then it'll be hollister (or santa rosa, again, depending on weather).
 
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