Dichroic Reflections

flight planning

I'm trying to get ready for my flight to Santa Barbara tomorrow, and back on Sunday. There are so many things to remember that I feel like I'm drowning in paperwork - odd, considering I'm only flying a lightplane.

• Check weather (this is just so I know whether to pack shorts or jeans; I'll do an aviation weather check tomorrow for things like expected winds at altitude and cloud ceilings
• Flight planning. DUATS make it much, much easier, but I still need to double check it on a map to make sure that the route it picks is the most sensible one, and to make sure it doesn't demand I fly on an airway too high for my unpressurized plane.
• Pack the walkie-talkie. Only because my silly husband refuses to own a cellphone.
• Figure out where to park the plane at the destination airport - so Rudder knows where to find us. See previous point.
• Decide if I need to stop for gas on the way. I don't legally - the flight will take about 35 gallons and I have 53 gal. usable fuel, but that's not including time to taxi or delays due to headwind. I have enough reserve that I don't really have to stop but ... it's my ass in that airplane. Also, make sure the place I plan to stop actually does have fuel.
• Figure out what phone number or radio frequency I need to use to close the flight plan at the fuel stop.
• Print out charts of the destination airport (Santa Barbara), the fuel stop airport (Blythe), and the alternate in case of bad weather (Santa Monica).
• I need to pack some clothes, too.

Most of that is done by now - more would be, but I need to change the ink on my home printer because the printouts of the airports came out blurry. For some reason my work printer doesn't like the PDF files. The funny thing is, this is all much, much easier than planning a VFR (visual) flight would be.

Not everybody does this much planning for every cross-country. However, not everybody flies over a desert in 114-degree heat, either. Screwing up would be annoying.