I'm working on a project at the moment, and just after a few comments from current PPLs on HOW you plan your trip and navigate...say a 1 hour flight to another airfield passing close to some controlled airspace.
Rather than the CAA answer of "I use dead-reckoning and back it up with my GPS", how are you actually planning and flying the route?
Is it Skydemon, NATS website, or other for pre-flight planning? How much time would you spend on planning the above flight? Assuming you are planning to avoid the controlled airspace in the example above, how do you navigate around the airspace?
Many thanks,
Cookie
Jon Cooke Pilot Coaching Scheme Chairman Light Aircraft Association
For a 1 hour good weather VFR flight: Plan on skydemon, using waypoints that are in my IFR GPS (airfields, nav beacons, intersections). Get weather from skydemon TAFs/METARs and a glance at the weather radar. To fly, programme the route into the panel mount GPS and monitor airspace on skydemon on the ipad. This takes less than 10 minutes to plan.
For a 3 hour VFR/IFR flight in the UK: Plan on skydemon, using waypoints that are in my IFR GPS, and print the plog. Draw up the route on the chart. Weather from skydemon TAFs/METARs, weather radar and gramet aero. To fly, programme the route into the panel mount GPS and monitor airspace on skydemon on the ipad, tracking progress on the paper chart as a backup. I also try to have at least one conventional radio aid tuned in ready to take over. All of these flights are done above the MSA - even when VFR. This takes about 15 minutes to plan, longer if I'm going abroad and need to spend the time to understand a different airspace structure.
Assuming you are planning to avoid the controlled airspace
On anything but a local sightseeing flight (where I would just turn back) I have a plan to get around controlled airspace - again using waypoints that are accessible on my panel mount GPS, and preferably with good ground features too.
Assume you mean VFR, look on a chart, pick a route also using IFR waypoints to programme the GPS.
My answer is genrally the same as jwoolard's.
I used to use the NATS websites for NOTAM's, but now I use SkyDemon for that.
I do still use the MetOffice website for weather, especially the F214 spot wind forecast to make sure it ties in with whatever SkyDemon is saying. Away from home, I use AeroWeather Plus a lot of getting a holistic view of METAR's and TAF's along the route I wish to take. I also use AeroPlus and WeatherProHD for weather analysis, as well as the Ogimet site for cloud bases and tops.
I did a writeup on this site describing what I did in terms of planning for a 4 hour flight to France. Generally I use the same process, except in the UK I wouldnt be using the French charts ;-)
If I am doing a route even in the UK I have not done before, the time spent planning up front, trying different routes, checking weather, taking the plates out of the Pooleys binder and putting them on my kneeboard and so on, would probably take longer than the flight itself! But, I'd rather have all my bases covered than just jump in a plane, fire up SkyDemon and blindly shoot up in the air. That method works for some, and of course for local area flights or one's I have done many times before, then the planning time is reduced and I dont go over the top. NowI would spend at least 50% less time planning La Rochelle again, because I am more familiar with the route.
A 1hr flight is a reasonable distance if VFR.
I use Navbox Pro to draw the route and print off the map (as A4) and the plog.
Then I look at the "real" chart (which I have both printed, on the wall, and electronic) and check the MSA and write the figure on each leg of the plog, and same for the planned altitude.
The ex-Navbox map and plog go on the kneeboard.
In flight, the route (which consists entirely of IFR waypoints e.g. VORs, NDBs, intersections) is loaded into the IFR GPS and that is the primary guidance, and drives the autopilot.
I also run the "real" VFR charts as a GPS moving map on a tablet computer. This is handy as a double check on airspace and I use it for shortcuts, which are flown using the HDG mode of the autopilot.
The printed stuff on the kneeboard needs no backup.
The backup for the GPS is a handheld GPS in the yoke, and the backup for that would be VOR/DME.
Total planning time maybe 15 mins and most of that is messing around e.g. printing off A4 pieces of the CAA chart along the route so I don't have to mess with the big CAA chart in the cockpit. A 1hr flight might be 3 pieces.
I've been doing the above for over 10 years and see no reason to change 
Works for anywhere in Europe.
Skydemon for planning the route. Skydemon for NOTAMs. Met Office and Skydemon for weather. Skydemon on iPad and Garmin 496 for navigating, backed-up by CAA chart, ground features and printed Skydemon plog. If the two GPSs fail, I have a third in the bag also running Skydemon.
Hmmm, I feel technologically inadequate! For a 1 hour VFR flight, I will have a chart aboard, I will take the GPS if I remember it, and I will fly it based on local knowledge. Same goes for a two or three hour VFR flight. For longer than that, I will refer to Google Earth first, for a general review of the route, note waypoints, then I will refer to actual paper charts, with a GPS backup.
But then, I remember the two decades of flying I did before we had GPS....
Paper charts, slide rule, check met and notams on the 'net. Do all the sums, then go. I'm aware of the planning tools such as Skydemon but I fly infrequently enough to enjoy doing it all by hand.
I have a airspace Aware but my aircraft's cigarette lighter isn't currently connected so as it doesn't have a long battery life I tend to turn it on only when I'm close to airspace.
I also have Flight Simulator with some extra scenery packs, which is good for learning landmarks. I used to simulate all my flights before flying them. Also good for practicing some procedural skills.
Rather than the CAA answer of "I use dead-reckoning and back it up with my GPS"
If it is somewhere unfamiliar I use Skydemon and program my Aera as well as the 430 usually....or just press Go To...
but I also look at a chart and note the landmarks....I don't think the quoted CAA answer above is correct....I think for VFR the CAA would actually say by :visual reference:....not dead reckoning....especially in the vicinity of controlled airspace
But then, I remember the two decades of flying I did before we had GPS....
Planes really worked back then?
