first solo cross country flight-got lost

[Barty]

Same here. I was able to find an online user guide for the KLN-94.

http://www.n612sp.com/KLN94UserGuide.pdf

I was just flipping through that myself this afternoon.

I've been reading the 430W manual a bit more, since that's the GPS the school has equipped most of the older aircraft with. If I had a little more money sitting around I'd work on my IR and fly some of the LPV approaches around here.

 

[katiekat]

Just wait till you start flying at night, and I mean at night when all you can see outside are lights on the ground.

My first time flying a cross country at night was with an instructor, sometime before I got my private. We were in a 152 with no GPS. The instructor wanted to see how well I would do without any help so he just sat there and watched me. I was a little shaky with VORs still so I didn't really use them and relied mainly on figuring out where i was based on the lights on the ground. Luckily for me, we were flying west along the CT side of the Long Island Sound, so there are some decent sized cities to guide by. Finding DXR however is a little more difficult because there are hills encircling the the southern side. My instructor started getting nervous when I lined myself up for 26 without being able to see it because we didn't have enough altitude to see over the hill but I assured him I was lined up right. He didn't believe me and made me climb up a few hundred feet and lo and behold, I was lined up almost perfectly with the runway. Then, because I was too high after climbing to assure my instructor I knew what I was doing, I pulled a slip to drop altitude and freaked him out even more.

After reading that you might assume that I didn't get lost on my first solo xc but you would be mistaken. I ended up missing a check point and not being able to figure out which of three airports was the one I was supposed to land at. I gained some altitude and circled a little until I figured it out.

Kinda funny how I only get lost during the day lol

 

[PGT]

I remember my night X/C as boring. My instructor and I just kinda stared at stars and tried to find satellites. Then again I did mine at the end of my training so I had all of the pilotage / dead reckoning stuff down.

I wish I discovered the real use of VORs during my private days because now that's all I fly (IR training)

 

[DPApilot]

I remember my night X/C as boring. My instructor and I just kinda stared at stars and tried to find satellites. Then again I did mine at the end of my training so I had all of the pilotage / dead reckoning stuff down.

I wish I discovered the real use of VORs during my private days because now that's all I fly (IR training)

my CFI just did his all too well impressions of the gay (in his mind they were gay) germans he worked for haha

that, and we made fun of one the guys we hated at Flyers hahaha

good times on the night XC...