flight planing challenge: New Jersey to Arkansas

[Cyrus]

Keith,

In an effort to learn more about the flight planning process (the cognitive part!) I have some pretty dumb/elementary questions....

1. Is it not all that unusual to take on a 600 mile (~3 hour?) flight such as N07 to 3M7 with a VFR plan? (I'm thinking here about the long distance and the possibility of variable weather in flight).

2. If VFR, wouldn't you have to spend a lot more time (vs. IFR) scanning the outside for traffic - even with Advisories along the way? What's more, if you're a single pilot on such a trip, wouldn't that mean you're having to neglect your systems/instruments a little too much?

3. You said mostly GPS direct for the routing. Presumably, that means you wouldn't be flying on the victor airways? My assumption had always been that these were the best bet for long distance flying. Perhaps with the widespread use of GPS now, that's no longer true....? (although when I plotted along established route, mostly VOR-to-VOR, the duration only went up by a couple of minutes).

Just trying to learn.....

[Keith Smith]

All great questions, not dumb at all, Cyrus.

1. Unusual to go 600nm VFR? Not that I'm aware of. Weather planning starts with the 'big picture', the area forecasts, the prog charts...looking at weather systems involving many states. You then drill down for the route of flight and what's going on locally. In my case, there was high pressure dominating the entire eastern half of the country, making the weather planning a very quick exercise indeed, at least for the first leg. The second leg (400nm) had a bit of weather in the middle, and possibly some weather on the end, depending on how quick the front just SW of KADF moved along. It was forecast to start affecting KADF about an hour after my arrival time, but that's not much margin for error, so I filed and few IFR, knowing that GPS direct was a very real possibility and the effect on my flight time would be very close to zero.

Contrast that with coming out of the NY area where the IFR routing can add some delays due to more complex routing.

Had I seen anything odd in terms of weather, I would've given Flight Watch a call to get updated weather. As you can see from the time lapse, it was all very benign.

2. A huge misconception of flying IFR is that you no longer have to look for traffic. Any time you fly in VMC, regardless of whether you're operating on an IFR or VFR flight, you need to look for other VFR aircraft. In Class E airspace, where 99.9% of the flight took place, ATC separates IFR from IFR aircraft only. I did have flight following the entire way, which, practically speaking, gave me just about the same level of attention as I would've gotten if I was IFR in VMC.

Case in point, I have been on an IFR flight plan in VMC and have NOT been told about a plane that passed relatively closely to me (somewhere between 500 and 1000 directly below, a fast moving jet), because of controller workload. Compare that with the flight I just did, VFR, where ATC told me about another VFR aircraft 12 miles away on a converging course, and then gave me 6 more updates as time went on.

When flying VFR, you should be looking outside and occasionally checking your instruments. Checking fuel levels, oil pressure, oil temps and cylinder head temps is something I do throughout the flight, but primarily it's about looking outside (or should be). I won't lie, you can easily get lulled into bad habits with flight following and high altitude flight if the controller is silent for 10 minutes at a time. If they're not seeing anything or talking to anyone, and they're not busy doing other things, then the reality is there's probably nobody out there.

The length of the flight doesn't have any significant bearing on whether I'll go IFR or VFR.

Flying VFR actually frees you up to worry less about your exact altitude and route and actually gives you more time to look outside. Had I been IFR, a deviation of more than 200ft could result in a pilot deviation....that's not true for VFR.

3. Victor airways make up the enroute structure and used to be a critical part of IFR flying prior to the advent of satellite-based RNAV. That said, they're not needed for VFR flying at all. I pay no attention to Victor airways when flying VFR. I do utilize VOR's during the flight if they're available. I make sure I'm receiving them and that I know where I am if the GPS keels over. If the GPS does keel over, I'll then swap to ded reckoning, pilotage (assuming I have visual contact with the ground) or I might consider going VOR to VOR.

Going VOR to VOR from the outset doesn't buy me much. Better to be prepared to revert to VOR to VOR rather than plan for it from the outset.

On leg #1 on the return trip (KADF-3M7), I had an absolute blast using pilotage at 7500ft to keep a high level of situational awareness, even though I was flying within 0.01nm of the GPS direct course. Great way to stay engaged in the flight, and if the GPS keeled over, I would've said, "hmm...that's interesting" and kept going What's need about pilotage from high altitude is that you can use landmarks 10nm+ on either side of you to verify your location...you don't actually have to fly directly over them.

[Peter Grey]

I'm not Keith but I'd like to support some of his answers regarding long range VFR flight.

Long range VFR is not that abnormal. I used to regularly fly small aircraft VFR across the country. Most of these aircraft were not IFR capable and some didn't have any reliable form of radio or RNAV navigation. My "record" solo was a little over 1400 NM (straight line path) in a non IFR aircraft (over 3 days). This was with a group of 5 other aircraft. All were small Cessna's (C172 and smaller) the smallest were 2 C150's that would do 100 KTAS.

On these longer flights weather was normally a concern. If you can go IFR weather becomes a much smaller factor as it becomes your fall back plan. If IFR is not an option the weather becomes that much more important. I happen to have a meteorology background so I was comfortable making my own forecasts and using NWS data to verify my thoughts on the weather. The flights i did were a bit more time sensitive then most so there were some creative routings and plans to get around/handle weather.

Having good alternative options is always a good idea, and don't forget about what happens after you land (I've been stuck in many "interesting" places with up to 10 other people in my group). You should always be able to answer the question "what if I need to land right now". Out on the east coast this usually isn't an issue, on the west coast you have to be more careful. You can be 50-70 miles from the nearest airport, and that one may not have any useful facilities.

Hopefully this provides a different perspective on VFR cross country operations.

[Cyrus]

Thank you for great replies, Keith and Peter! (I'll need to give then at least three re-reads each).

Keith, I just watched the video, too. You know this already - but it bears repeating... this sort of "training" leaves a great legacy for us student types for years to come. I especially appreciated the comments about the clouds, and why/when you closed out the IFR plan, as well as hearing the Citation calls (and his right downwind!) over the CTAF - good stuff!!

Oh, and I loved the meet-n-greet on the ground at the very end. Perfect closing of the story

[Keith Smith]

Thanks Cyrus, I was strategic about what I kept in the video when I was editing it. There's not a lot of videos out there which explain the decision making. I remember starting my instrument training and not being able to find resources that really talked about the nuances of an end to end IFR flight. That's why I try to verbalize some of the decision making, even down to when to cancel IFR

What I didn't say in the video is that if I didn't cancel IFR there and then, I was going to be in for an extended ride through the bases of some cloud with some fairly extensive vertical development...which is to say it would've been a rough ride.

It's also a good reminder of why it's good form to cancel IFR once you're on a visual as soon as you're legally able...to free up the air space for the next guy who might be trying to shoot a visual since ATC is going to exercise the one-in, one-out policy and lock down that airspace. As you heard, she was going to keep me at 4k because I was number 2 for the airport. If I was in IMC, then I'd have had no choice to but stay at 4k and ride it out. That's why I cancelled, quickly, so I could get down in time to avoid those clouds by at least 500ft vertically (the minimum VFR cloud separation).

Not to harp on it, but this is why it's helpful to arrive with a plan As I was descending to 4k, I looked at those oncoming clouds, determined that 4k would not have me below them and planned to ask for lower. If I didn't get lower, I would try to cancel if conditions allowed.

And yes, I thought it might be nice to keep the meet and greet in there to tie it all together. It's great to roll out on the ramp and shake hands with the client...always a positive way to start the relationship and reinforce some credibility.

[Keith Smith]

Just did an IFR flight from N07 to KASH this morning. Have the camera mounted with an all-new setup. The results are very promising. Can't wait to get this one published, it's unlike any video I've captured to date. Camera is mounted to side of of headset

[Cyrus]

"KeithCam" !

Looking forward to the link.