CFI-A Lesson 11

Today's lesson was a ground brief only - no flight - covering Obtaining Weather and Navigation & Flight Planning. I started preparing for this last week by summarizing every weather report, forecast, and chart known to pilots and the three types of briefs (Hanes, Fruit of the Loom... Just kidding): Outlook, Standard, and Abbreviated. Then I started working up an example flight plan from Vero Beach to La Belle. And then I tried something new. I pretended that a sheet of paper was a whiteboard and I drew my presentations; one per sheet. As I drew, I found that I needed to move things around for clarity. That's exactly why I did it. When I got to the actual brief, I knew exactly what I was going to draw/write and where to place it on the board.

I spent six hours this morning and early afternoon working out the details of the flight plan and working on combining the two briefs into one seemless whole that played off of both themes. I wanted to start generic - airport A and B - and then get more specific with each new item placed on the board.

When the brief began, I drew overhead and profile views of my generic route, then asked the question, "As a flight student, what rules must we follow when flying a cross country flight?" The answer is visual flight rules (VFR). So what defines VFR? Visibility and cloud clearance, but that varies by airspace. So let's assume that we start in Class D airspace, fly through Class E, and land in Class G airspace. Now, what is the most restrictive conditions? Class D and Class E are equally restrictive, but wait, FlightSafety has additional restrictions for student pilots. What are they? They're listed in the rules and regulations. OK, now that we have our clouds and visibility defined, where do we get the information? The Weather Channel? CNN? The local news? I listed all places and then asked which the FAA considers official sources and explained that the others were fine for getting a big picture days in advance of the flight, but within 24 hours of a flight, you must use the official sources. I then recommended that my 'student' use the flight briefer from the Flight Service Station, rather than the Internet sources, because they are trained professionals and can often tell you things that you wouldn't otherwise get from reading the raw data.

With my weather brief rolling and drawn on the board, we got up and walked to the weather room. I tried (unsuccessfully) to download the latest weather. The network was having issues, so I suggested we look at the data from my last flight.

I covered wide scope to narrow scope; Area Forecasts to Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts to Meteorological Aviation Reports. These three documents provide the cloud and visibility information for a given flight. Based on this data, the flight was a go. Then we looked at the various charts and very briefly talked about what they provided to the go/no-go decision. Again, the flight was a go. Finally, we looked at Winds Aloft and tied that back into the flight plan.

I erased everything from the board except my generic airports and airspaces and renamed them to be what they actually are - Vero Beach and La Belle. Then I pulled out my sectional chart showing the route. Back on the board, I discussed the route. The first choice when selecting a route is usually direct, but what can cause a non-direct routing? I showed Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs), Restricted airspace, obstacles, and large open areas - water or swamp. In our case, we had none of these, so we chose direct. At this point, the flight is a go.

Then I started discussing the destination airport. I asked what sources of data are available for airports - the sectional, the Aiport/Facility Directory, and Notices to Airmen. I discussed why checking NOTAMs is so important - the sectional is up to 6 months old, the A/FD is up to 56 days old, but NOTAMs are current. So, if a runway was closed, you may only find out by checking the NOTAMs. I also brought up two FlightSafety rules: 1) All solot cross country flights must be to an airport on the list of approved airports, and 2) All pilots on cross country flights must top the fuel tanks before returning. La Belle is on the approved list and has fuel, so the flight was still a go.

Next up was choosing checkpoints along the route. Obviously, the two airports are included, but what others would be good choices? I suggested picking spots that are 20 to 30 nautical miles apart, which is approximately 10 to 15 minutes flight time. Then I suggested top of climb and top of descent because they must be calculated as part of the route calculation. Then I mentioned other checkpoints along the route that could be used as part of pilotage, which led into a discussion of pilotage, dead reckoning, and navigational aids. Our route didn't have many navaids, so then we talked about determining an altitude. Thing to consider include clouds, distance between points, air space restrictions, and the hemispheric flight altitude rules (odd thousand + 500 for east and even thousand + 500 for west). We chose to plan for 4,500 feet, based on our southwest course, winds aloft, and distance.

With checkpoints in hand, we used the winds aloft data to calculate compass heading, airspeed, time to checkpoint, and fuel consumption. The fuel consumption was well within the capabilities of the Cadet and met VFR minimum requirements. The flight was still a go.

At this point - 1 hour and 15 minutes into my presentation - my instructor pulled the plug. He was pleased with my presentation and had seen enough to know that I had done my homework and was being very thorough. He went over some areas where I mispoke and offered some common sense-type things a student might not know. Then we called it a wrap and started discussing Lesson 13. I'll be sub-contracting out Lesson 12, so my next FSI lesson is 13. So, my days of flying the Cadet are over, for now. It's up the ladder to the Arrow, a 200-hp retractable gear speed demon.

My primary goal was to find a way to make the presentation seamless and well-flowing, while hitting the main points over and over again. I think I succeeded in making the point that several factors are involved in the go/no-go decision. I would have liked to have had more time to cover what-if scenarios that might come up in flight so I could cover areas of judgment, but time ran out. I'll be sure to get that in when I do this for real, with a real student someday.