Delta Connection Academy

 Perfection is a lofty goal and your instructor will tell you they don’t expect perfection, but that’s what we aim for as pilots. In our future, customers will trust us with their lives. When you think about that, perfection should be our goal.

 

My chair flying challenge was that I was sure I would forget items on the ground that I needed to remember in flight. For the longest time, I didn’t chair fly. Now I write down everything I think I’ll need to do on the flight, and that helps me stay focused while I chair fly. If I realize I’ve forgotten something I can add it to my list. In the future I’ll take it with me when I backseat flights.

 

This works best for me when I write it down first by hand then transcribe it onto the computer. All the requirements for flying are outlined in the Flight Standards Manual. This is a great place to start. 

 

Remember, what works for me may not work for you. I got this idea from Chirag, one of my classmates. Talk to your classmates and the CFIs in the LRC to figure out what works best for you. 

 

If you have suggestions for me, please share! Do you have topics you’d like me to blog about? If so, let me know at my academy email, JessicaCooper@dcamail.net.

 You can probably guess that a Navigation Log or “Nav Log” has to do with planning cross-country trips. It is very helpful (if not necessary) to find an unfamiliar destination airport, figure how far away it is, how long it will take, and how much fuel you will use. You may not know that the E6B, or flight computer, that helps you compute all the necessary steps. Keep in mind that flight planning is slightly different for Visual Flight Rules and Instrument Flight Rules.

 

You will learn how to do this in depth in your ground school, so without going into too much detail, the first thing you do is plot your course on the appropriate, current map. Using a plotter, find out which direction to go, and using the E6B, correct for wind. During this step, you also find your groundspeed. 

 

Using the other side of the E6B and the groundspeed you found, you find you figure out how long each leg will take and how much fuel you should plan to carry on board for your trip. 

 

There are so many things you can do with an E6B – I’m sure I’ve just scratched the surface with the computations I’ve learned so far. One great thing about it is that it gives directions on each side to help me remember what to do as I’m learning.

 

Other areas of the Nav Log which need to be filled out include the date, the airplane’s N-number, total distance, total fuel needed, time off, and areas to draw or cut and paste each airports’ layout, and their respective frequencies. The back leaves areas to fill in from the weather briefer.