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Dear Rod: Private Pilot Certificate Candidates Are Expected to Be Able

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Dear Rod: Private Pilot Certificate Candidates Are Expected to Be Able Dear Rod: Private pilot certificate candidates are expected to be able to plan and execute a dead reckoning cross- country flight in which they prepare a flight planning log sheet and select checkpoints and calculate estimated times of arrival and fuel burn for each. Assuming a low cruising altitude, this is a relatively simple exercise for all checkpoints except the first one. For the first checkpoint, there is a climb segment and a cruise segment. For the remaining segments one can typically assume a constant altitude, airspeed, and fuel consumption rate. Now for my question. As an instructor, I'd like to know if there is a single, preferred technique that students can use to calculate the ETA and fuel burn for the first checkpoint. One rule-of-thumb method I've seen is to use the planned cruise airspeed and fuel rate for the entire first segment, and then add one minute for each thousand feet of climb, to account for the reduced airspeed and increased fuel burn during the climb. However, it would also be practical to use the performance charts to perform a more detained calculation, and there are flight-planning programs that will actually do so. The question is, what do examiners really want to see? Sincerely, M. Wilson Greetings M. Wilson: Here's my rule of thumb regarding rules of thumb: Use a rule of thumb on anything you desire except fuel burn, otherwise you'll be all thumbs when it comes to calculating the precise amount of fuel in your tanks. Yes, I know there are several rules of thumb floating around regarding fuel usage and time to climb. The problem is that many of these rules of thumb get a thumbs down for their accuracy. While accuracy may not be an issue when it comes to estimating required descent rates and cloud bases, it nevertheless makes sense to strive for petrol precision with fuel calculations. Here's what I suggest you teach your students. Have them check the airplane's POH (pilot's operating handbook) for a chart that allows them to compute fuel usage during a climb. Most POHs have such a chart. The Cessna 172, for instance, has a chart titled Time, Fuel and Distance to Climb. This chart allows you to estimate with great precision the time, distance, and fuel required to make a climb to cruise altitude. For example, the chart shows that you'll cover 12 nm in 10 minutes and use 1.9 gallons of fuel as you climb through an altitude difference of 6,000 feet at 60 knots IAS. With this information, as well as any headwind or tailwind component you've calculated, your student can easily estimate his or her arrival time and fuel usage at the first checkpoint. For instance, suppose that the first checkpoint is 15 miles away. Under a no-wind condition, you only need to compute the time to fly three additional miles at cruise speed to find the ETA at the first checkpoint. If there's a wind involved, so what? These calculations should be child's play for anyone who's passed - or is preparing to take - the private pilot knowledge exam. I can make these calculations in seconds with one hand while using the E6B computer. Typically, however, it often takes two hands and a bit more time when using the standard electronic aviation calculator. If the Time, Fuel and Distance to Climb chart isn't available for your student's specific airplane, then make one. Do so by determining that particular airplane's average fuel burn rate in a climb and the average rate of climb during climb to cruise altitude. This is how airplane owners come to know their airplane's precise fuel burn. Sure, it will require a few hours of experimentation, but you can do this during the course of training. There's no good reason why you shouldn't create an approximate Time, Fuel and Distance to Climb chart for your student when one isn't available for his or her particular airplane. What do examiners like to see regarding precision with checkpoint computation? All I can say is that your students can't go wrong if they strive for precision. The above methods of calculation are certainly more precise than the rule of thumb you mentioned. Consider the following. It's unlikely that your students will create elaborate flight logs for future flights once they are certificated. Nevertheless, your insistence that they use flight logs early in their training will at least force them to think in terms of checkpoints after they become private pilots. This is also why you should insist on precision when your students compute time and fuel usage during private pilot training. You want to leave them with the impression that precision is important when it comes to knowing the amount of fuel in their tanks. As they strive to become experienced aviators, this type of training will serve them well. Flying Smart Aviation Speak On a computer bulletin board where student pilots toss out questions, a new student asked why he needed to include true airspeed in his calculations when planning cross-country flights. "Couldn't I just use groundspeed?" he asked. Respondents were quick to point out that unless he knew his airplane's true airspeed, or TAS, he wouldn't be able to compute his groundspeed. TAS is the speed at which your airplane is moving through the air. It varies according to altitude, temperature, power setting, and engine performance. For flight-planning purposes, you look in your pilot's operating handbook to find the TAS for the approximate altitude, outside air temperature, and engine rpm you will be flying. You then use the TAS - along with true course and wind direction and velocity at cruise altitude, which you obtain from the winds-aloft portion of your weather briefing - to calculate a wind-correction angle. The TAS, adjusted for wind correction and true course, yields your estimated groundspeed. This is the speed of your airplane relative to the Earth's surface. It's the speed that you'll use to calculate fuel burn and estimated travel times for each leg of your trip. There's no cruise control in an airplane - you can't push a button and keep traveling at a steady 110 kt. That's because you're flying in a three-dimensional environment in which winds can and do change direction and velocity. So you'll want to compare changes in groundspeed against your TAS. A tailwind can become a headwind that eats up your fuel reserve by causing your aircraft to fly more slowly across the ground and burn more fuel to travel the same distance. If you keep track of this, you'll know if you need to make a refueling stop sooner than you had anticipated, and you won't become a fuel-starvation statistic. There are a number of reasons that might explain why pilots overwhelmingly prefer a manual E-6B to its battery-powered, microchip counterpart. First, the E-6B is a status symbol, and many pilots are proud to be seen with one. This is similar to the manner in which math and engineering students in college used to enjoy strutting around campus with slide rules dangling conspicuously from their belts. (I recall buying a used E-6B after my first flying lesson. No, I had no use for it so early in my career, but the computer looked so cool and identified me as a pilot.) Second, the E-6B is absolutely, positively Y2K compliant and will not fail when a battery dies. (Plastic E-6Bs, however, have been known to warp and become junk when left on the glareshield of a parked airplane on a hot, sunny day.) Third, they are relatively inexpensive. Perhaps the most significant reason for the E-6B’s popularity and longevity is the elegant simplicity with which a pilot can construct a wind triangle. The required plotting consists only of making a small pencil mark on the computer to represent the wind velocity. Once that is done, the pilot needs only to adjust the sliding scale to the applicable true airspeed and rotate the compass rose to the desired true course. Voilà! The computer has been set up in a way that allows the pilot to visualize the entire wind triangle. The two unknown quantities (usually groundspeed and true heading) are then read directly from the computer and can be visually verified as being reasonably correct solutions. For these reasons, the majority of flight and ground instructors continue to recommend the "old- fashioned" E-6B instead of an electronic model. Although slightly more accurate than an E-6B, electronic computers are prone to input errors that result in erroneous data that may not be as readily detected as when using an E-6B, a classic example of "garbage in, garbage out." It is worth noting that although some E-6B computers are marketed under different names (such as Jeppesen’s Slide-Graphic Computer), they are nevertheless the products of Philip Dalton’s ingenuity. It is unfortunate that he did not live long enough to appreciate the relative immortality of his creation. Make Your Planning Count There are as many reasons to learn to fly as there are people who have dreamed of it. Sometimes the motivation is family lore about a brave old relative who was a pilot in aviation's early days. For some, the fascination began with a childhood vacation begun on a giant airliner or a visit to an airshow.
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