So I am doing my cross country flight tomorrow. I have to fill out the two page nav log, weather log, W&B worksheet etc. I dont mind doing this for my training purposes but is it really necessary to fill out all those papers before every flight with what we have at our disposal with garmin, foreflight, etc?
How many do actually do this after getting their PPL?
To answer your question directly - very few.
To answer the question which seems to be implied, i.e. what is the point of doing this for a private pilot pilot practical test, I have a perspective here which might be interesting to some (including you... )
An electronic nav log is perfectly suitable for the purposes of Tasks I.D. Cross-Country Flight Planning and all of the appropriate Knowledge and Skill elements of VI.A. Pilotage and Dead Reckoning.
That's right, you can show up with an electronic flight plan "auto generated" by ForeFlight or Garmin Pilot. Absolutely no technical issue with that.
But, I don't recommend it, and I've seen it linked to more than a few situations which led to Notices of Disapproval for the applicant.
If you show up with an auto-generated flight plan, by default I'll need to ask you questions about how you computed the WCA, ground speed, fuel burn, etc. You'd get these questions with a hand-generated paper nav-log as well, but you're demonstrating knowledge by preparing an accurate navigation log, and as a result I may only look for issues which require "digging" after reviewing your flight log.
Furthermore, you'll know any answers to questions such as "how is this computed, or how did you come up with this TAS" because you'll have actually done so for the nav log in question. You won't need to reverse engineer the result or work a sample problem.
Here's a couple of examples which come to mind:
- Applicant presents a nav log which looks correct on one half (winds, leg distance, magnetic variation, WCA, etc.) but the other half (ground speed, fuel burn, fuel remaining) is completely off. Turns out he hand calculated the legs but let ForeFlight do the work on the fuel burn and ground speed, resulting in an illogical burn and ground speed for the winds of the day. (He calculated it by hand the night before with a tailwind, then ForeFlight updated the weather and the winds were no longer the same.). This sort of discrepancy is obvious to a pilot examiner.
- Applicant brings in a nav log generated by ForeFlight. To evaluate Task I.D, she is presented with a scenario in which the winds are from the north rather than the south, and asked to compute a new WCA. She uses a manual E6-B but after multiple attempts continues to get a wind correction angle which would result in a wrong-way crab. This places the applicant's knowledge and application of basic navigation skills in doubt.
- Applicant presents a Garmin Pilot generated navigation log for an airplane which is different from the one being used on the practical test. Cannot determine why the performance numbers don't match the POH but concludes "the computer must be right."
In general, when you bring an electronic nav log there's a good chance that you're going to deal with additional evaluator-presented scenarios. One way or another, the applicant must demonstrate this knowledge and apply it; might as well base it on the hand-calculated navigation log you bring with you to the practical test.
