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Old 13th Mar 2012, 12:29
  #21 (permalink)  
piperarcher
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: South-East, United Kingdom
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I have had my license for about 5 years. Over time you will fine tune your own methods depending on the hardware and software resources available to you, and your comfort in using (or trusting) them.

For me, I always carry a CAA chart. If I am going outside my local area I always draw lines on it and circle any danger areas, gliding sites and airspace level changes. I tend to draw routes that can make use of VOR tracks in case I need to fly IMC.

I do carry a PLOG but dont bother with wind / drift calculations or leg timings like I did pre-license - I draw the wind direction and speed on my chart and calculate the max drift angle so I can make rough calculations. I do use the PLOG for listing OCAS levels I can fly at, as it helps me with my planning. I also list a radar service I might be able to call up if I need it (saves having to flick through pages of paper, or hunt for numbers on the chart). My PLOG also has frequencies pre-printed for airports in the vicinity of my local area.

For navigation though, I do prefer to load up a route into my Garmin GNS430, and cross reference on a NATS aware. I do that mostly so I can enjoy the flying and the views, and not having to spend ages with my head down in the cockpit and worring about leg timings etc... I have an iPad 2 and have memory map and air nav pro, but as a P1 personally I think it encourages too much head down activity either looking at it, or changing views on it and stuff. I guess thats the advantage of panel mounted GPS's - at least your head is up and has a bit more peripheral vision. I still have my map and PLOG to fall back on if that stuff goes t*ts up.
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