Planning my first nav-ex - any and all tips welcomed!
 

Hullo PPRuNe folks :) This is my first post on here so apologies if it's a bit boring, but tomorrow I'm due to conduct my first nav-ex with my FI.

Nothing too tough - Elstree, North London down to Southend and then back - but I'm keen to get the planning right, so any tips would be gratefully received :)

http://media.greyheaddev.com/images/...2019.42.12.jpg

I think I've figured out that the narrow NOTAM brief from NATS is the right one to go for, as all the other briefings seemed to think I needed to know about the dangers of flying over Tripoli, Ukraine and so on...

Thanks :)

Alex

Line on the map seems to be going the right way. Looks good to me. Don't forget to check Notams as late as poss before you go because you can bet your bottom dollar that someone will be flying a kite no higher than 500' along your route or someone will be launching balloons, fireworks, witches on broomsticks, SAM's etc.

I notice you are flying over Stapleford ATZ. Ask your instructor about calls to them.

I take it CAS considerations are a given.

Enjoy it, your first XCs are great! Slipping the umbilical of the circuit and all that.

Thanks, thing =o)

My greatest concerns right now revolve around what magic words to say to Stapleford to grant me passage across their ATZ, and then exactly what the instructor will say to Southend control to allow us to overfly the threshold, turn 180 degrees, and bimble away the way we came.

I certainly don't remember seeing the wording for such a request in CAP 413...

:E

alexgreyhead

don't know how to say it in british english

but I think we would say this...oh and check the aeronautical information manual...


Stapelford approach control, piper XXXX 10 miles south at 3000' request transition northbound to Mellonville.

instead of saying: we would like to fly through your airspace...use the word request.

what does bimble mean?

It's the Oz equivalent of 'going bush'.

Incidentally talking about language, I've seen your forum name many times and always seen it as 'Glen-da-le-goon'. It's not that is it, it's 'Glendale-goon.'

Nooo! You mean you're not landing at Sarfend? What sort of xc is that? Where is the bacon butty, what sort of instructor have you got? There's a lovely place called Maypole just a bit further on on the south side of the Thames with a pub right outside the airfield. Ask your instructor person if you can land there for lunch.

Ta muchly glendalegoon - will give that a pop tomorrow and see how things pan out.

For the record, I'm with thing on this; "Bimble" is something I picked up as an Air Cadet many years ago - it's a bit like "wandering" or "having a mooch about", I guess...?

I always assumed that a 'bimble' was a moderately aimless, perhaps minimally planned, and probably local excursion. Just my impression of what a British gentleman might do on a Sunday afternoon:)

In contrast, 'going bush' is a serious business, mate.

And I wondered at first about this Glenda Legoon and wracked my brains to recall if I should know her.

Oh yeah..the flight plan looks good :)

Hi Alex,

welcome to Pprune.

I fly from Elstree, too. That route will be full of students on a VFR day, so keep your eyes peeled!

The route itself is as simple as your line shows, overhead Stapleford and then direct Southend.

The RT will probably involve calling F'bo on 132.8 once you leave the Elstree ATZ for a basic service, and they'll give you a squawk. You will probably stay outside the Stapleford ATZ by staying around 2400 ft on the London QNH, although your instructor may of course want you to call them for the practice.

Southend has an RMZ, so you need to contact them around Chelmsford and tell them your intentions and you'll typically get a new squawk.


Return is the same in reverse, and you'll
be contacting the cheerful controllers - I mean AFIS - at Elstree around the Lea valley reservoirs.

But I wouldn't worry too much. If its your first XC, you're there to learn and he/she will probably do most of the RT whilst explaining what he's doing and why. The aim of the exercise is to get you used to reading the chart and recognising your local area from above - and getting used to rejoining the circuit. Try to keep a steady heading and altitude to make life easy and 99% of the job is done :)
But do keep a good lookout...


it'll be great fun and will start to bring all the things (weather, law, RT, performance planning etc) together - just like the real thing!

And put away that calculator and get the whizz wheel out :)

Have fun

B.
seriously, do keep a good lookout, it gets busy.

Same happened to me, with equally disappointing outcome.

Totally agree. Now is the time to use it.

Finally a word of my own, well remembered from my instructor when I made my first such efforts: if you begin to see a vast expense of water, it might well be you are approaching the sea. Check your compass to get an idea which sea it might be then decide in which direction to turn.

> Totally agree. Now is the time to use it.
quite. You may never get to use it again 😊


> If you begin to see a vast expense of water, it might well be you are approaching the sea. Check your compass to get an idea which sea it might be then decide in which direction to turn.


Lol. Having said that, unless you were planning to cross an ocean, you may skip the compass check and just do a 180...


To quote Leia Fee's blog :"if you see an easily recognisable landmark, you can orbit that for a while until you recognise which easily recognisable landmark it is...."


B.

Alex You have a PM

Cusco

GLENDALEGOON....

first off there is a city near los angeles, california, USA. It is called "GLENDALE". It is near Pasadena, home of the famous tournament of roses Parade and perhaps more importantly, the JPL or JET PROPULSION LABORATORY...a place where NASA handles robotic space missions (as opposed to Manned space missions).

GLENDALE was also the place for the first or one of the first airports serving Los Angeles...I think it was called THe GRAND CENTRAL AIR TERMINAL.


SO, we have someone from GLENDALE who is a GOON...you can look up what a GOON is.

It is a handle, name etc to distinguish me from others and I think it is funny.

It is not GLENDA whatever

city...glendale

type of person...goon


that's me

over and out on the RT

If you have any appreciable cross-wind, you need to find out your average drift angle, not just to set your heading on the DI, but to see where you are going.
Its a bit like driving a rally-car, most of the time you are looking through the passengers window, or your driver's door window.....


oooh, and here we prefer to use permanent marker pens on the chart, with a White-board pen for removing the marks.


Anyway, have fun, and I hope you get some decent weather soon....

Alex, hopefully the following will be relevant and of help!

If you can't see your way point when you expect, consider the possibility that you've flown right over it

It's the job of airfields to hide from pilots and they are very good at it. So since Stapleford is on your route look out for it ahead and to both sides for a few minutes before you anticipate reaching it. When you reach it you'll then have a very good idea how close to your planned track you are.

Pick a few seriously easy to identify landmarks on both sides of your track a couple of miles out and highlight them on your map. This will help you know where you are relative to your plan if you get drift wrong, which is easy to do as the forecast may be wrong!

Otherwise what you've done seems sensible to me, have a good trip if the weather allows.

Alex
Don't us Chinagraph, they are too thick and rub off, try a fine spirit based marker pen!

Stapleford is A/G so the call-sign is Stapleford Radio, they do not have any ability to Control! "Transition" refers to a LEVEL an ALTITUDE and a LAYER, we as pilots do not "transition" unles its another name for Bimble! (Bimble - to aimlessly go - allez sans precision)

If you are flying with an instructor, then why are you not asking him rather than people on here? The instructor's job is to teach you how to do it.

My only observation would be that your life would be easier if you bought a proper 'aviation' ruler with a scale in NM and (and less critically so) a better protractor.

Let us know how it went!

I done my first nav ex just over a month ago, quite a feeling when you actually arrive over the turning point just from following your own plan, 2nd nav ex 2 weeks ago was a bit more challenging as it was quite a bumpy day.

just waiting for the weather to play ball for my 1st solo nav ex, which was supposed to be yesterday but had to scrap the plan due to wind and cloud so ended up 5 miles from the airfield tracking vor radials instead.

The hardest thing that I always found on my xc's was that without fail some sneaky b*gger would come along after you depart and steal the airstrip.

Always remember on one of my solo navex's a radio call 'G-XXXX are you visual with the airfield?'; 'Negative, struggling to locate, can you assist'; 'Affirm, it is 1000 feet directly beneath you'. :ugh:

Good luck, a big milestone.

Exactly the same thing has happened to me. Most embarrassing.

Hi Alex,
Welcome to the flying fraternity. That's one thing you'll never regret.

I've been around a while and there are just a couple of things I would recommend.

1) Plan properly and clearly, as you have been taught.
2) Don't clutter you chart with unnecessary guff.
3) If YOU don't like the weather, don't go.
4) When you're enroute, THINK AHEAD. Don't spend time thinking about the last fix.
As you're approaching it, start looking for the NEXT one.

Finally, relax and enjoy it, maybe a bit of a challenge when it's all so new and exciting.
4)

Happened to me as well. A well-known, international airport kindly turned on the runway lights for me! It's worth having a look at your route on one of the map/satellite sites before you take to the skies.

Enjoy!

Good training video
 

What I can recomend is a very good training video that can be found on the Internet called "Nought feet".

Dispite not being the most modern training aid it is as good now as the day it was made, the more perceptive observer will note that aircraft can be flown without the aid of GPS, safety is maintaned without being clad head toe in dayglo clothing and the compleat lack over important clipboard holding elf & safety officers does not end in disaster.

Good luck with the flight and keep a very good lookout in that airspace !

Enjoy! Your first cross country is exciting and special, just like first solo :)

Once we had foreign students, and off they went on their first solo nav.
One evening one was a bit overdue so we launched search airplanes.

Once "the lost one" found out we where looking for him he was so exited he lost it and shouted on the RT:

"Chateau, chateau, j'arrive."

(Castle, castle, I am coming.)

He was not lost at all, just enjoying the flight.

The best tip I can give you is to listen to what you instructor tells you. That's his/her job and that's what you're paying him/her to do.

Don't piss him/her off by telling them about a whole lot of stuff you heard about on PPRUNE.

A couple of observations from your photo. It would appear you have had no formal training on flight planning/navigation.

Why all the scale calculations to work your leg distances? One nm is one minute of one degree of latitude, so distance is easy to measure by placing your measured distance along the lines of longitude and counting the number of minutes of latitude. Or you could use a nm ruler for the scale of chart you are using. Perhaps you will be shown this as part of your preparation for the flight.

I see you have drawn the track on the chart, have you made up a navigation log with tracks and distances? Your instructor will probably advise on how he/she wants this done.

Also I would use a soft lead pencil, nicely sharpened to mark your track. It allows for you to draw track line that's not too thick and is easy to rub out when you need to use the chart again. Take advice from your instructor on this too.

Edit: A second look at you photo shows that you may have a plastic coating on your chart, if that's the case ignore my pencil comment. Also use a square protractor, it's much easier to align with the lines of latitude, longitude and your track and it gives a full 360 degrees to measure from.

.........:ok:

To those who might have their concerns: at most Belgian aerodromes, R/T is quite formal and quite effective. There are exceptions though, of course, as always and everywhere, and over here we have them mostly in the South, where many things are much more relaxed.

There is a south of Belgium? Is it big enough to have geographical areas? :)

Went to Oostende last year, very helpful and efficient ATC.

Went flying in Slovenia once. In a 1.5 hr flight the challenge wasn't to avoid infringing controlled airspace so much as to avoid accidentally crossing (several) international borders by flying in a straight line for more than a few minutes!

I had an unpleasant experience on my qualifying cross country when the wind which was forecast to be blowing from the north, was actually blowing from the south. The west-east leg suffered a double drift effect pushing me way too far to the north.

After that, I always set a waypoint around 6-10nm from the departing airfield and pay particular attention to where I am relative to it as I pass (both time and position). This means I can quickly get an idea of what the wind is really doing up there early on as opposed to relying on what someone forecast. I find that it makes the rest of the leg a lot less stressful.

Not your fault obviously but were you never taught to do that right from the start of your xc training?

Maybe even just about to fly over it. I found, more than one, turning point that had been under the engine. Having looked up just a fraction too late as they slipped under the spinner, I was searching both sides whilst they were underneath.

I also had an issue with an airfield which positioned itself on the wrong side of me, and despite lowering a wing and looking, I just couldn't see it. To save the day, my instructor pointed out that he had one on his side and we could use that as a turning point.

Enjoy the day. and let us know how you get on.

As for planning, assuming you use laminated maps, try this combo:

Sharpie pens and toilet roll. Seriously, this is even better than Chinagraphs, which I get free. Different colours, cheap n cheerful, available in Tesco. What's not to like?

As long as you give it a few seconds to dry, the lines are ideal.

Nay, surely if you get to the point where you s*** yourself before a xc it's time to pack it in.

Thing, I'm trying to help him be prepared.

If he is indeed going to **** himself..............

Then he has the toilet roll.


If he uses it to clean up that, then He will probably not fly again, so he will not need to wipe the map. Simples.

I acknowledge and admire your thinking sir.

Likewise your achievement at finding humour in a fairly dry subject.:ok:

There's humour in everything if you look hard enough :)