Favorite VFR Nav Log?

CC268

CC268

Final Approach
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CC268
Thanks guys I bet the examiner would love that one
 
At this point in time, I suspect VFR nav logs are being used, if at all, mostly for primary training and checkrides. Even by the time of my instrument checkride in 1994, I was using the dot matrix printout from the original Telnet-based DUAT system (which started in 1990).

Basically, so long as the form has columns for the correct input numbers and output calculations, it will do the job. FWIW, here's the one I used with my students. I'd still use it today for primary instruction. It's a duplicate of one in very common use at the time.

Not sure what you saw that was too short for the job.
 

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midlifeflyer said:
At this point in time, I suspect VFR nav logs are being used, if at all, mostly for primary training and checkrides. Even by the time of my instrument checkride in 1994, I was using the dot matrix printout from the original Telnet-based DUAT system (which started in 1990).

Basically, so long as the form has columns for the correct input numbers and output calculations, it will do the job. FWIW, here's the one I used with my students. I'd still use it today for primary instruction. It's a duplicate of one in very common use at the time.

Not sure what you saw that was too short for the job.
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That’s the same one I’ve always used. This is for my commercial checkride btw. I could just do the basic points (intersections, VORs, TOC, TOD), but I was going to include all my major landmarks as well. I suppose that isn’t necessary and I can simply talk to my major landmarks along the route.

In my opinion, doing a hand written nav log for a commercial checkride is silly, but I digress. I actually enjoy doing them to some extent, but to think I would actually do a hand written nav log for a long cross country is silly.
 
Matthew said:
I've always like this:

http://www.dauntless-soft.com/products/freebies/vfrflightplanner/

It's meant for use on a clipboard style kneeboard.

Print it out - front and back. Fold it in half, and it's formatted in such a way that the back side is printed upside down you if you flip it up the print is right side up.
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That’s the one I use. I have a knee board for my iPad mini with a small clipboard on the cover, making it easy to flip back and forth. I use the iPad most of the time, but flip to the paper to check waypoints, for radio frequencies, to jot notes on wx, etc.
 
Walboy said:
Hope you're not disappointed when the examiner doesn't even want to see your Navlog. Of course Murphy's law applies, if you don't have one, he/she will want to see it.
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Applicant pulls over a 3" binder completely full of paper.

Examiner: oh, you kept a copy of all your past flights?

Applicant: No, that's just for this flight
 
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Walboy said:
Hope you're not disappointed when the examiner doesn't even want to see your Navlog. Of course Murphy's law applies, if you don't have one, he/she will want to see it.
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Yea no kidding...my private examiner didn’t even ask to see it lol
 
CC268 said:
I saw that one and found it interesting. Might give it a shot
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The have a couple of different versions. All of them seem to be the same except for the order in which they calculate the magnetic heading.

I like it, even for short XCs, because it has enough spots in it for writing down frequencies and other info. Sure, I can get a lot of that ahead of time or from the sectional, but having a spot in a navlog specifically for that info helps remind me about it.
 
CC268 said:
Yea no kidding...my private examiner didn’t even ask to see it lol
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I remember my PP DPE looking at it. At the time, he assigned the same XC to all his candidates. He knew the route by heart and could tell, with a quick glance, if you did the math correctly.
 
VFR. . .NavLog. . . I kinda remember, but like an appendix or a liberal, while there are plenty of them about, and usually harmless, not sure we need them. . .
 
Sundancer said:
VFR. . .NavLog. . . I kinda remember, but like an appendix or a liberal, while there are plenty of them about, and usually harmless, not sure we need them. . .
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11691954-EE04-4D08-BB57-22A3C3E37E4F.jpeg
 
I hear for the ATP they make you do a hand written nav log from Chicago to England and you have to pick checkpoints every 15NMs. Gotta make sure you can do some basic pilotage if you lose the triple redundant systems :p
 
CC268 said:
That’s the same one I’ve always used. This is for my commercial checkride btw. I could just do the basic points (intersections, VORs, TOC, TOD), but I was going to include all my major landmarks as well. I suppose that isn’t necessary and I can simply talk to my major landmarks along the route.

In my opinion, doing a hand written nav log for a commercial checkride is silly, but I digress. I actually enjoy doing them to some extent, but to think I would actually do a hand written nav log for a long cross country is silly.
Click to expand...
A NAV log only has to have enough fixes to do the job...a couple right after top of climb to make your checkride calculations, and then one every 20-30 minutes should be satisfactory, even for a DR plan if you pick them properly.
 
MauleSkinner said:
A NAV log only has to have enough fixes to do the job...a couple right after top of climb to make your checkride calculations, and then one every 20-30 minutes should be satisfactory, even for a DR plan if you pick them properly.
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It depends on its purpose. I agree with you completely on using one in the real world, because the primary goal is monitoring time and fuel use; we should not need to to know where we are. When I teach it at the primary level (and I know we're talking about commercial level here), the ones I teach are:
  • a first checkpoint which is very obvious so, no matter how much you get turned or vectored around during departure it's easy to find;
  • a last checkpoint just as obvious from which you can say, "I know the airport is hard to find, but if I turn to a heading of XXX over this checkpoint, whatever I'm looking at in the distance is in the direction of the airport" (I also taught this method in mountain training so you knew which of the identical-looking passes was the right one);
  • some between those. For primary training it's too many, but the goal is to learn how to do it. I like your 20-30 minutes for a real world rule of thumb.
 
MauleSkinner said:
A NAV log only has to have enough fixes to do the job...a couple right after top of climb to make your checkride calculations, and then one every 20-30 minutes should be satisfactory, even for a DR plan if you pick them properly.
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Well...that’s what I thought but my instructor thought it would be good to have some landmarks for pilotage to show the examiner. The problem is you ask 10 different people and you get 10 different answers.

My instructor had a FSDO guy come in and was insinuating you shouldn’t be used GPS waypoints on a VFR flight plan which I thought was absolutely absurd.
 
CC268 said:
Well...that’s what I thought but my instructor thought it would be good to have some landmarks for pilotage to show the examiner. The problem is you ask 10 different people and you get 10 different answers.
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I would counter I’ve got a line on my chart, and if I can’t put at least the eraser end of a pencil on my position along that line by visual reference, I’m lost.
My instructor had a FSDO guy come in and was insinuating you shouldn’t be used GPS waypoints on a VFR flight plan which I thought was absolutely absurd.
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Maybe they’re OK on the flight plan, but one aspect of the cross country portion of the commercial checkride is pilotage...unless a GPS fix is clearly identifiable on the ground, it’s not appropriate for use as a ground checkpoint.

I would say if you want to use one as a turnpoint, feel free...that would be part of the DR portion of your flight plann8ng and checkride.
 
MauleSkinner said:
I would counter I’ve got a line on my chart, and if I can’t put at least the eraser end of a pencil on my position along that line by visual reference, I’m lost.

Maybe they’re OK on the flight plan, but one aspect of the cross country portion of the commercial checkride is pilotage...unless a GPS fix is clearly identifiable on the ground, it’s not appropriate for use as a ground checkpoint.

I would say if you want to use one as a turnpoint, feel free...that would be part of the DR portion of your flight plann8ng and checkride.
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Actually I guess I see what the FSDO guy was saying. I have two waypoints on my plan but they are VOR waypoints identifiable off the VOR. Not GPS specific waypoints.
 
CC268 said:
Actually I guess I see what the FSDO guy was saying. I have two waypoints on my plan but they are VOR waypoints identifiable off the VOR. Not GPS specific waypoints.
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I don’t think “VOR is ok but GPS is not” would be the fed’s intent.
 
MauleSkinner said:
I don’t think “VOR is ok but GPS is not” would be the fed’s intent.
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Can you clarify please? Are you saying I should not bother using VORs and just use ground reference landmarks (pilotage) as my in between points?

Idk I guess I was silly to think I could plan a flight like I normally would and I could simply talk to the various landmarks that could be used for pilotage.
 
CC268 said:
Can you clarify please? Are you saying I should not bother using VORs and just use ground reference landmarks (pilotage) as my in between points?

Idk I guess I was silly to think I could plan a flight like I normally would and I could simply talk to the various landmarks that could be used for pilotage.
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The commercial cross country has pilotage, DR, and radio NAV components. My take on the fed’s comment would be that you have to make sure your plans and your NAV log allow you to do Pilotage and DR using visual reference as well as any radio NAV. A VOR radial isn’t a visual reference for DR.
 
MauleSkinner said:
The commercial cross country has pilotage, DR, and radio NAV components. My take on the fed’s comment would be that you have to make sure your plans and your NAV log allow you to do Pilotage and DR using visual reference as well as any radio NAV. A VOR radial isn’t a visual reference for DR.
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I see what your saying. I’m not too worried about it. All my points coincide with some sort of a visual landmark.
 
CC268 said:
Well...that’s what I thought but my instructor thought it would be good to have some landmarks for pilotage to show the examiner.
Click to expand...

When we are talking about checkrides, this is THE primary consideration. Paper VFR flight planning during training and on the checkride is about demonstrating that you know how to do it on paper. Despite the PTS/ACS goal of uniformity, different examiners will naturally view "know how" differently.
 
It's a VFR flight plan, shouldn't really use VOR or GPS. It should be landmark based and if you want to back up that information with radials then that is a plus. For my com check ride I chose visual check points every 10 miles or so. We took off and flew to the first two and then headed out for the airwork.
 
Back in my day :rolleyes: the PTS criteria was a flight near maximum range of the airplane, with a time limit on the planning (60 minutes? can’t remember). A waypoint every 10 miles would mean a maximum of 30 seconds to develop each navigation point after drawing my north/south course line across both sides of several charts. I think after a couple of close ones so I could do the whiz wheel thing, one navigation point per chart side sufficed.
 
CC268 said:
I see what your saying. I’m not too worried about it. All my points coincide with some sort of a visual landmark.
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I can remember from my PP training the rule of thumb being - a visual checkpoint should be verified twice. For example, "There's that overpass. How do I know that's the right overpass? Because of that tower over there and that bend in the road over there." I'll mark VOR radials for a validation, too.

One my my first XCs went over a wind-farm that I used as a checkpoint. That was a bad choice, it went on for miles in all directions. Sure, I was over it, but it wasn't a check-point, it was more of a check-county.

Since almost all my XC training experience was in a non-GPS environment, I think I ended up getting used to the idea of "if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." So pen, paper, whizwheel, eyeballs, sectional, compass, and clock...and then see if that all agrees with that magenta line in front of me.
 
Walboy said:
So now that it's over, did the examiner even look you at your navlog?
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Actually he did haha...asked how I got the winds a loft, performance charts, etc. Wasn’t a big deal though.
 
The E6B would be very handy while you are diligently filling out the form during flight.
 
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