PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - XC trip - Circle across Canada and the US
Old 25th Jan 2016, 19:22
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surveytheworld
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Canada
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If you have an iPad with ForeFlight on it, you'll be set for maps, flight planning... but of course the paper route is totally possible as well, just a bit more labour intensive... For the AFD in the USA - you can find these digitally online, so if you don't have the iPad/ForeFlight combo, you can just save those as a PDF to your phone. Worked like a charm for me. If you do use iPad/ForeFlight - there are lots of tricks to save battery life (you don't need to keep GPS tracking enabled, ensure Bluetooth off, etc) - after my company went digital, I could easily do a 3-leg day on a ferry flight on one battery charge.

I barely had any "stuff" since there was no baggage area, just a small area under each seat. Because of this I (reluctantly) decided to wear a flight suit (had some basic gear in the pockets - Leatherman, Clif bars, whistle, small first aid kit, signal mirror, etc plus passport, pared down wallet & license) and just wore a quick-dry T-shirt/shorts underneath, which were easily washed in the hotel sink at night and dried before morning. Had a reasonably nice looking set or two of regular clothes (layering is key), extra socks, etc. Ball cap. Sunscreen.... I also brought my personal ELT that was issued to me from my survey job, just in case. (You could look into getting a SPOT device or something a bit more portable/cheap). Earplugs - dual purpose - for minimizing noise under the headset plus to use if you want to have a reasonable sleep at a cheap hotel...

I'd recommend a large thermos or reusable water bottle or two - easily refillable at FBOs and most will give away bottled water anyways. (Once we were all packed, we topped up to max takeoff weight by adding "emergency" water but relied on our pit stops for the day to day stuff.) Camera w/ extra batteries/charger (unless you're happy with phone pics.) Granola/protein bars (i.e. lunch replacements.) Cash....
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