PLOG shorthand

[99loki99]

Hi,

Anyone got any good systems for en-route PLOG entries? I'm just getting into the cross country stage of my training and I don't have a system of my own.

This means, 10 minutes after I hastily scribble some ATC stuff down, I don't remember what the hell I've written...

ATB,

Loki.

[eyeinthesky]

Use some acronyms:

An ATC Clearance which is delivered as:

"G-ABCD, remain outside controlled airspace and squawk 7634, report on track passing west abeam" would be transcribed:

ROCAS #7634 RP O/T W ABM.

I'm sure you can work some out for yourself.

[FlyingForFun]

Any time you change your heading (or plan to change your heading), write the time (2 digits, minutes only), followed by the heading (3 digits).

Example: say you are flying heading 090 and you begin the leg at 1410. At 1415 (5 minutes into the leg) you realise you are off track, to the left of your desired track.

There are many ways of getting back on track, and no doubt your instructor has taught you a method. By way of example, I'll assume you are 5 degrees off track, and you are using the "double track error" method of correcting - although the shorthand will work with whatever other method of correcting you might have been taught.

Using the double track error method, you should turn right by double the amount you are off track. That would mean turning 10 degrees right, onto a new heading of 100. Hold this heading for however long you were flying the previous incorrect heading for (5 minutes in this case) then remove half of the previous correction - in other words, in a further 5 minutes, turn onto heading 095.

So my plog would read:

15-100 (that's the time and new heading that I've just turned to)
20-095 (that's a reminder to myself of the next heading I'm going to fly, and when)

FFF
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[99loki99]

Thanks folks!

That's just the kind of thing I'm talking about...

I forgot to mention that I'm left handed as well, which doesn't help matters in a 152. Any other South paws out there wanna share their coping strategies?

Loki.

[flyingfemme]

Learn to fly from the right seat?

[FlyingForFun]

I'm left-handed, and don't have many specific tips which are different from what a right-handed pilot would do. I do find an A5 knee-board easier than an A4 one, and I tend to orientate it sideways (otherwise my writing comes out sideways) - and that means I can't strap it to my knee.

There was just one incident, several years ago, where I was in Las Vegas, and requested a standard VFR route from ATC. I expected a simple "cleared on that route" type of clearance, but what I got instead was "Are you visual with the airport?" When I said I was, I was told to "route direct to the threshold of runway XX, then to the threshold of runway YY, then heading ZZZ, maintain X000 feet". My left hand was hovering near the ptt button, and my right hand was the only hand free to hastily grab a pen and scribble down the instructions.

I wish I'd kept my plog from that flight and framed it - scrawled across the whole plog, in barely-legible writing, was the best I could do at noting down the clearance with my right hand. It obscured everything else on the plog, and was so barely legible that I could only really use it to jog my memory as I followed the clearance!

But then I suppose that could happen just as easily to a right-handed pilot if the ptt button is on the right hand side of the yoke. Which is why I teach all my CPL students to have a pen handy when contacting ATC, even if they don't expect to need it!

FFF
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