Which Pooleys Flight Guide to get

[Pilot16]

Hi everyone,
Im just about to purchase a Pooleys Flight Guide.
I have two choice, buy the Spiral bound one (£20) or the one with Amendment + binder (£35)...

which one should go for?
There seems to be a huge price difference :confused:
is the amendments really necessary? or worth the money? :confused:

As usual,
I would greatly greatly appreciate some help :cool: :)
Thanks very much in advance!

P16

[FlyingForFun]

The amendments aren't strictly necessary - they're helpful, but you should call an airfield before you depart anyway, and hopefully they'll tell you about any changes.

But I like the one in the binder because I can remove individual pages and clip them to my knee-board, which is much easier than trying to work from the full book when flying.

(Of course there's nothing to stop you photo-copying the page you want and clipping the copy to your knee-board, but it's not quite the same somehow. Besides which you can't photo-copy a page if you need to divert in-flight!)

At the end of the day, though, I think it's just personal choice.

FFF
----------------

[Select Zone Five]

I have the spiral-bound version, it's cheaper and it's easy to flick thru' if you're airbourne and need the information quickly.

It's a good resource for an initial briefing but, as FFF says, the aerodrome you're visiting should give you an update when you call them in preflight...and the latest plates are available online from the AIP via NATS website (http://195.217.206.162/aes/login.jsp). I always print out the latest info (for my kneeboard) from here. You'll have to register but it's free.

[28thJuly2001]

Select Zone Five,
I do exactly the same as you, word for word.
So I must be doing something right, unless we are both doing it wrong. :D

28th,,

[Sir George Cayley]

Which ever Guide you buy I would advise taking up the amendment service.

If you, like so many private pilots, make it last more than a year you will eventually have unreliable info. Sure phoning for PPR will often ellicit relevant info and the obligatory NOTAM check should reveal WIP etc.

But think of your shiny new book in Aug 2003. Eight months will have elapsed since it was printed, Will the AFISO you call remember the new mast just outside the ATZ they put up in February?. It won't show in the NOTAMS after 6 months and as you impress you pax by scud running in you may get a nasty surprise!

I've used Bottlang in lose leaf format with the amendment service for many years and am more than satisfied with it.

Sir George Cayley

The air is a navigable ocean which laps at everyones door

[BEagle]

I've always bought the loose-leaf version with the amendment service. But I don't like the new 2-ring binder at all as it doesn't provide sufficient security for the pages. Fortunately the old 4-ring binder will hold the 2003 Pooley's Guide without difficulty, no matter what the people at Pooley's might say....

Any offers for a useless 2-hole binder? One owner from new, never used, raced or rallied!

[Pilot16]

Thanks! :cool:
hmm, I dont have my license yet, still barely half way through, so Im still stuck between which one to get as I wont use it as much as a Qualified PPL (i think).

Oh well, I guess If I am going to get one, might as well get a 'proper' one (one with amendments).

Anyway. how do you get hold of the amendments, do they get posted to you?

P16

[knobbygb]

While training, you really will only need info on a few local fields, I'd have thought. Don't the school/club have a full set of the AIP Aerodrome info (two large binders with about 300 pages each) in the flight planning room? They should, and these should be kept up to date too.

Also as Zone Five says, the NATS website has everything you need. Print them from here, take them with you, and just print new ones when they change/get scribbled on too much. Buy an up-to-date Pooleys when you start going places on your own.

[Whipping Boy's SATCO]

SZF - I mostly follow the same routine that you described. However, the AIP does not include all unlicensed aerodromes. Lacking an up-to-date AIP entry, I photocopy (scan) the appropriate leaf out of Pooley's/Lockyears.

One further observation, how many of us are flying around on a half mil that hasn't been updated in 9 months? For example, compare the old/new dimesions of the Brize Norton CTR.

[ModernDinosaur]

I've just gone for the Pooley's ring binder with revisions (and yes, I agree that two-ring is definitely a step backwards). Last year I used Bottlang (unrevised) and I can't find a great deal of difference in the information provided about each airfield (except formatting).

If I liked Bottlang, why did I change? Well, Bottlang ends at national borders, while Pooley's covers a short distance inside neighbouring countries. As I live and fly near the south coast, trips to France are a part of my flying. Pooley's includes Le Touquet, Ostend, Dinard etc. Bottlang doesn't.

As for the choice of bindings, loose-leaf wins for me as I have a kneeboard with a few plastic wallets inside. This makes it easy to take out the relevant pages for a flight and have them right at hand in the air - even printing from the AIP isn't as good as the pages are generally too large to fit into the wallets.

Cheers,

MD.