Tag: navigation

  • IR Part 141: Challenges of Cross-Country Flying

    The third stage of the course primarily focuses on cross-country flying. This means that students are required to plan and execute a flight to a remote airport, located more than 50 nautical miles from the departure airport. Although I had experience preparing mass and balance, weather briefing, and fuel, I had never prepared and filed…

  • Mountain and Lake Adventures: A Flight to the Austrian Border

    I have always wanted to see the mountains and lakes near the Austrian border, and they are truly incredible. The only challenge is that one needs to climb up to 6000 feet to get a good view. Luckily, the weather today was perfect for it. I bet that glider pilots would have been envious of…

  • Crossing the Country: A Flight Adventure

    Today, I planned a long cross-country flight. It supposed to literally cover almost half of the country. The weather was not perfect, but acceptable, and I set out towards the east. A significant part of the route went through controlled airspace, making my workload higher than usual. As I’m not yet used to talking to…

  • Mastering Cross-Country Navigation: My Latest Flight Check Experience

    Today, I underwent another check to endorse me for solo navigation flights. This internal check is mandatory for all students as per our syllabus. Basically it was a regular cross-country flight using a paper chart, and we flew a very beautiful route. I’m not scared of navigation flights, generally I do well. To be honest,…

  • New Instructor, New Experiences: Navigating Towards Successful Landings

    I have a new instructor again, and I’m hoping that he will stay with me until I pass my checkride. While it can be fun to fly with different people, I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of overlap between exercises, which means I end up flying more hours than necessary. While the experience is valuable…

  • First Cross-Country Flight: Navigating Challenges

    Today was my first navigation flight with a full stop at a different aerodrome. I spent a lot of time planning the flight, including map routing, checking NOTAMs, assessing the weather, estimating fuel usage and time, and more. I would like to make a comment about logging cross-country time. I have explained this in detail…