Now that Stage 1 is out of the way it was time to start talking Cross Country flights. Cross Country flight just mean that we deal with more than just our local airports. There is a special circuit that CFIs have set up for your first cross country. Funny story behind that...
Kristie tells me were about to start off on solo and cross country flights. Since the ground training center at Hillsboro is rather small, you can easily overhear what is going on in each training cube. Here is a transcript:
Kristie: "Were going to start off with [quietly] The Triangle of Happiness". Gareth happened to be right across the hallway.
Gareth: "What did you call it?!"
Kristie: "Nothing, don't bother us."
Gareth: "Did you say, 'Happiness'?"
Kristie: "[Embarrassed] Yes."
Gareth: "It's not called the 'Triangle of Happiness'... It is called..."
CFIs in hearing distance:
"The Triangle of Death!"
Kind of reminded me of Finding Nemo and the initiation scene.
Anyway, I'm psyched for this. The "Triangle of Death" consists of flying to two airports before heading back to Hillsboro. It is a well known circuit and has some good distinct pilotage landmarks. Simply, you fly from Hillsboro(KHIO) to Mulino(4S9) to McMinnville (KMMV). About a 70 mile round trip covering some interesting land.
Part of the ground lesson was to start a flight plan. I had to get it into nice digital format: Hillsboro Flight Plan Document - Triangle of Death
Next week looks to have some hairy weather as well... so it may be a while before we get to make the run.
1 comment:
Man, your flight plan brings back some memories -- I remember doing those when I was a fixed-wing student.
Later on, I got lazy and used (and still use) RMS Technology's Flitesoft. You just plug in your route which can be airport to airport and can plug in intermediate points such as VOR's if you want (I don't want), then tell Flitesoft to call up DUATS to get weather, NOTAMs etc. Flitesoft then plugs in the winds aloft forecast, lays out a flight plan and plots it on either a section, terminal chart, or both. The whole process takes a minute or two!
Then, being extremely lazy, I ignore all that paper, plug the route into one or both of the GPS receivers on board (Garmin 430 + 496) and fly the route!
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