Remember sending your first solo cross country?

Joestructor

Joestructor

New Member
I sent my first student on his initial solo cross country today. Everything went well, I must say, I was not as nervous as I thought I would be.

One interesting fact I learned today was the time periods that Flight Service will start looking for you if you have not closed your VFR flight plan. My student arrived a little late back to the base airport and flight service called the tower and closed it out with them after he landed. I called flight service and asked if we had done anything wrong and they were very helpful and informative.

Here is what I found.
If 20 minutes passes and you have not closed your flight plan, you basically go onto a "warning" and your flight turns yellow on the FSS operator's screen.

After 30 minutes, they will start calling ATC, or your contact number you provided on your flight plan form. Also they may call the sheriff's office and see if someone can check the airport to see if you have landed.

The FSS controller told me they wont send an actual search and rescue crew out until around an hour and a half after your proposed arrival time.

I thought this was good information. Anyone else have anything like this happen?
 
I was in this situation before as a student and wished my instructors would have shown me I wasn't helpless. I make sure to be very meticulous about the actual logging of each leg's data (ie: average GS, ETE, etc...) with my students, what they decide to do after training is their call. I also make sure to have them amend their flight plan once on one of our dual cross countries so they can see ATC is there to help when necessary, they don't have to watch the time tick and stress.
 
Yea I do the same. I make them keep track of time along the route as they fly, writing in all the ATE, and ATA info. I guess I will probably start teaching to add about 15 minutes extra time on the VFR flight plan just to allow a little breathing room so you have enough time to close the flight plan with FSS
 
When I would file a flight plan I would always add 20-30min extra on to my estimated time for situations like that. If I were in a real emergency though in the middle of nowhere it may come back to bite me, but I am a big fan on flight following instead of flight plans.
 
flymike said:
When I would file a flight plan I would always add 20-30min extra on to my estimated time for situations like that. If I were in a real emergency though in the middle of nowhere it may come back to bite me, but I am a big fan on flight following instead of flight plans.
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Amen. Flight following is stress free and nearly as good as IFR. I encourage my students to use it. I addition to the safety factor, they get to work on their communication skills.
 
Our school requires Flight Following on every XC, so the students can get the ATC practice. It's also a good way to check up on them using a flight tracker. I found out a long time ago that students sometimes don't go where they are supposed to go on the Nav Log.
 
The best scare I had was when I signed off another instructors student for his first solo x-c. I forget about him, then FSS calls, I know he has not landed yet.
15 minutes later he comes rolling in.

He was soooo late, I legitimately thought he plowed it in. A quick call to TRACON confirmed he was still flying though.
 
One thing I would not tolerate is a someone not flying the planned route. I would have a nice chat with that student afterward!
 
Heh. My FIRST XC sign-off did this to me. We found out because he went to another airport. Well, the Chief instructor just happened to be there flying the pattern with another student. My student decided to be courteous and fly a 360 on DW to give them time to take off. After they came back, they looked for me to compliment me on my courteous student. I was like "Hello! He was supposed to fly to XX airport". Well, that day went to hell in a handbasket.

I don't know. I always did everything I was told to do. I just don't understand when students try to talk you into cutting corners, or pulling stuff like this to save time/money. I tell them that yes it's expensive and that if want a cheap hobby they should take up knitting.
 
pilot1278 said:
Heh. My FIRST XC sign-off did this to me. We found out because he went to another airport. Well, the Chief instructor just happened to be there flying the pattern with another student. My student decided to be courteous and fly a 360 on DW to give them time to take off. After they came back, they looked for me to compliment me on my courteous student. I was like "Hello! He was supposed to fly to XX airport". Well, that day went to hell in a handbasket.

I don't know. I always did everything I was told to do. I just don't understand when students try to talk you into cutting corners, or pulling stuff like this to save time/money. I tell them that yes it's expensive and that if want a cheap hobby they should take up knitting.
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That's crazy. Why would they go to a different airport? When I was getting ready to do my solo XCs I told my instructor where I wanted to go. He said no, go here. I said okay and went where he wanted.
 
I once got back from a trip to CLL for some Freebirds and upon landing I immediately called the FSS to close it. The guy must've been new and just said "Glad you're fine" *click* I thought it was closed, as I have done it dozens of times, but never had such an odd experience closing it. But about 30-45 minutes later I got a call on my cell about an overdue aircraft. I explained that I had in fact called to close it out but it just didn't get done, he was real friendly and said that the important thing was that he could set it as a closed flight plan on his end and that there was nothing serious going on.
 
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