For those who aren't familiar, the Alphabet Challenge is not an official PE rating series (such as the CAT, I or SKY ratings), but it is still 100% worth your time...especially if you're not looking to work on anything specific and more just maintain proficiency, or just have some fun in your sim while still working toward an objective.
Today I became the 51st pilot on PE to complete the ZLA Alphabet Challenge. The challenge tours you through ZLA in an alphabetical fashion. The first leg is from kApv-kBfl, then from kBfl-kCma, and so on. Once you get through the letters A-Z, they go through the numbers 0-9 as well. In all, there are 35 legs and I'm writing this to share my experience in hopes of more pilots attempting/finishing the challenge.
I spent 3 months completing all 35 legs. Some of which are as short as 5-20 miles, others as long as 200-300 miles. The 35 legs take you all over ZLA to airports that you'd never think of going to, so for that reason alone it makes for a fun tour of the airspace. The challenge is truly what you make of it. For me, I used it to practice old-fashion dead reckoning (turned off the GPS and moving map, turned off NAV radios and just used skyvector and my eyeballs to navigate). I followed freeways, lakes, dry lakes, mountain tops, etc...it was a lot of fun and very rewarding when I actually found a small airport in the middle of nowhere without any help from modern technology. This made for a few times where I followed the wrong road, but I never found myself so lost that I had to give up. A few of my flight logs/tracks were pretty entertaining to look at once I landed where I could figure out where I went wrong and what wrong turn I made (see below).
The flights are all tracked on http://www.myflightroute.com (http://myflightroute.com/atoz.php?) where you can see the leg itinerary and submit your flight logs once you land.
The challenge rules are posted here: viewtopic.php?f=46&t=4806
Since the inception of the challenge 5 years ago, 240 pilots have attempted at least leg #1, but only 51 have finished. So whether you are one of the 189 who need to complete the full challenge, or one of the thousands who have never tried it, I highly recommend it if you have completed at least the CAT ratings. Keep in mind the alphabet challenge may be flown VFR or IFR which is why it is so versatile in accomplishing whatever you wish to get out of the flying.
Several things to note:
- Many of the airports are small non-towered fields, so I wouldn't recommend anything larger than the Cirrus VIsion Jet, although there are a handful of 200+ mile legs so you may want something faster than the C172 (I did most of my legs in the BE58).
- Don't gear yourself up for a dramatic ending. The last leg ending at L90 was, hands down, the worst airport of the whole challenge so that was mildly disappointing
- Read the rules on the link I posted above, but the biggest thing to remember is to file your flight plan (VFR or IFR) before taking off and to ensure it has you "arrived" when you land. Otherwise, you won't get credit when you submit your flight.
Have fun!
