Cross Country Flight

First off I would like to thank scheets for being the first to comment on my blog. It really means a lot and motivates me to know people are reading what I'm writing about. So nothing to exciting to write about tonight so I figured I would talk about how I like to do my first XC flight with a private pilot student. Having done quite a few of these I've kind of got it down to a science and have a way that flows really well.

First off the XC flight consists of three legs. For the one I will talk about the last XC flight I did departing Grand Forks(ND) to Warroad(MN) to Hallock(MN) and back to GFK. Each leg on this particular flight was relatively the same length with the longest being the first leg which works out very well, allowing me to really get a lot of teaching in during the first leg.

So for any VFR pilot there are multiple ways to navigate, pilotage, dead reckoning, VOR's, GPS, or NDB. I've found that it works best to start off the cross country using pilotage. Pilotage is basically drawing your course line on the VFR sectional and the picking out prominent landmarks along that route. So departing Grand Forks we start out by first getting on your course heading and trying to find our first checkpoint, usually within 5-10 miles from the departure airport. After we find this point you fly over, to the left, or to the right of that landmark according to where your course line is. After that you work on flying your magnetic heading and start looking for your next landmark. If you can see your landmarks easily pilotage is the easiest form of flying, all you have to do is fly to your next point.

This leg is the perfect time to get your student using the E6-B to figure out groundspeeds between checkpoints, estimated times to your next checkpoints, estimated time in route to your destination and estimated time of arrival at your destination.

The second leg is where I like to bring in the concept of dead reckoning, using whatever means necessary to navigate between point A and point B. In our airplanes I like to teach this using the CDI needle and GPS distances to figure out when your over your checkpoints. This is a perfect opportunity to give your student some experience navigating using the CDI needle and GPS. Again another great opportunity for the student to use the E6-B to figure out all of the above mentioned items.

The third leg is where I really like to tie in dead reckoning with a real world situation. I also usually use this leg as an opportunity to get some simulated, or in the case of this flight, some actual instrument flying experience. So after we take off I will have the student put on the hood as soon as we are established on your course. Now I usually say something like "Okay, well now that we can't see outside how the heck are we going to know when we reach our checkpoints?" Hopefully they remember what they just did on their last leg and will use the CDI needle to keep us on course and the GPS(or DME) to figure out when they are over their points.

This is just one way of millions to accomplish a XC flight and one that I've found works, and flows, really well for me. Thanks again to scheets and I hope you all enjoy what my experiences. I've got a few more story ideas to write about and more and more come to me(usually while I'm in the air!)