For my skills test I had to plot a route from East Mids Airport (the start) to Thrapston (east of Kettering) then to Chipping Campden (about 20 miles due south of the BHX NDB).
Note there's no Chipping Campden back to East Mids Airport
First leg was straight forward - just fly to Thrapston. Did that, no problem.
Then start on second leg, fly towards Chipping Campden...
Just after passing Northampton my examiner asked me to do a position fix, which I did using the DTY and HON VORs.
And very shortly after that he asked me to divert to Nuneaton Disused (aka Mira - halfway between Leicester and Birmingham).
As part of this I had to mark it up on the map, calculate the heading (accounting for wind) and ETA (and fly the plane at the same time :lol: )
I got it all spot on, which was nice and ended up passing the test.
So, recommendations from me
- make sure you've got your wind star prepared and know what your ground speed will be at various headings
- have something with you that has a time / distance matrix (if I'm travelling at 90kts then it will take me x minutes to do y miles) - the PLOG forms at the school I learned with had this printed on the back
- get good at using one hand to draw on the map while the other hand's flying the plane (or using the rudder to steer). I'd seen things on forums where the students had asked the examiner to hold the controls while they worked out the divert, but I asked mine a month or so in advance what his thoughts were on that... He said it would reduce his confidence in the pilot...
And good luck!
Example of the wind star and speed matrix on the back of the PLOG I use...