Flight Navigation

Author: Romaan, Last Updated: Jan. 25, 2025, 4:46 a.m.

Are you a student pilot planning to take a cross country flight in Australia ? Are you wondering what preparations need to make and how to organise and get ready ? If so, then the below article may be helpful.

So the first question that comes to mind is, what are the places you are planning to visit ? Lets say, we are in Canberra, and want the following flight plan:

Tumut (Full Stop)
Cootamundra (Full Stop)
Young Airport
Crookwell
Canberra (Full Stop)

Since weather conditions are one of the crucial factors that effect your flight, the next question obvious thing is, how is the weather. And in order to learn about the weather, we need a date and time. Hence the question, when do we plan to fly ? Let's assume we want to fly on 19th January 2025 @ 09:00 AEDT (Australian Eastern Standard Time) [18th Jan 2025 22:00:00 GMT]

Pre-Flight Preparation - Paper Based

Flight preparation materials

ERSA (En-route Supplement Australia)
Charts - WAC (World Auronautical Chart) / VNC (Visual Navigation Chart)
Nautical miles navigation ruler
ASA PFL Form
AirServices NAIPS Login (Free Registration)

Start your planning by referring to ESRA publication and finding their ICAO code, and

So for our example, it will be Canberra (YSCB) - Tumut (YTMU) - Cootamundra (YCTM) - Young (YYNG) - Crookwell (YCRL) - Canberra (YSCB)

Paper Map

Step 1: Find the locations on the VNC map

Step 2: Draw the lines joining the airports, also mark for every 10 nm along the line

Weather Report.

Login to NAIPS, go to location briefing, enter all the airports, include Head Office NOTAM, SIGMAT and GPWT with briefing period covering your flying hours.

Sample image of submitting request for location briefing is as below:

A sample response looks like below:

1816 UTC 18/01/25 AIRSERVICES AUSTRALIA
LOCATION BRIEFING

PREPARED FOR: USERNAME
VALID FROM 1816 UTC JAN 18, 2025 TO 1816 UTC JAN 19, 2025

WEATHER INFORMATION
-------------------

CANBERRA (YSCB)
TAF YSCB 181719Z 1818/1918
13010KT 9999 FEW020 BKN030
FM182200 13010KT 9999 SCT035
FM190300 10014KT CAVOK
FM191200 10006KT 9999 SCT025
TEMPO 1915/1918 9999 BKN020
RMK
T 14 15 20 25 Q 1021 1021 1020 1018
TAF3

METAR YSCB 181800Z AUTO 13008KT 9999 // OVC031 15/10 Q1021 RMK
RF00.0/000.0

ATIS YSCB Z 181229
TOWER CLOSED UNTIL 1900 UTC, CLASS CHARLIE AIRSPACE WITHIN
30 DME 8500 FEET AND BELOW REVERTS TO CLASS GOLF, CTAF AND PAL 118.7.

AUTOMATIC WEATHER INFORMATION BROADCAST 116.7.

CANBERRA TERMINAL INFORMATION ZULU

YOUNG (YYNG)
TAF YYNG 181735Z 1819/1908
12010KT CAVOK
RMK
T 14 19 24 28 Q 1019 1019 1018 1015

METAR YYNG 181800Z AUTO 17007KT 140V200 9999 // NCD 16/12 Q1019 RMK
RF00.0/000.0

NOTAM INFORMATION
-----------------

CANBERRA (YSCB) C39/25
HAZARD BEACON (HBN) 2666FT AMSL U/S
BRG 341 MAG 4.2NM FM ARP
FROM 01 160031 TO 01 310400 EST
...
PERMTHE FOLLOWING REQUESTED LOCATIONS HAVE NO CURRENT NOTAM:
YOUNG (YYNG)
CROOKWELL (YCRL)

Area Briefing

It is important to know the weather of the area you will be flying in, not such the location of landing and take off. For this, use area briefing option in NAIPS and read through the weather informaiton.

GAF Result:

GPWT Forecast

ASA PFL Form

Let us start filling the ASA PFL Form.

Column 1 is PSN (Position Serial Number). Let us enter the ICAO codes in this column. Start with YSCB in row 1 and draw a line all the way till column EET. For rest of the places [YTMU, YCTM, YYNG, YCRL], enter the ICAO codes in the rows below.

Column 2 is LSALT (Lowest Safe Altitude). In order to find the LSAT, carefully look at the line joining the airports and find the highest point nearby. Note that down. For example, the highest point between YSCB and YTMU is written on the same row as YTMU along the LSALT column.

Column 3 is FL (Flight Level) or ALT (Altitude): Choose the altitude you wish you fly. Remember the rule to select ALT is that, while flying North to South it is Odd thousand plus 500 feet. While South to North we fly at Even thousand plus 500 feet. For example - A045 is 4500 feet. Enter the ALT level in column 3

Column 4 is TAS (True Air Speed): This comes from aircraft manual. It is the true air speed that you fly.

Column 5 is TR(M): (Tracking Magnet direction). Use the protractor and align it at center of the line facing North and measure the direction. For example for YSCB to YTMU it is 274. And the magnetic deviation is 12.5 E. (Remember East is least, West is best). So subtract 12 from 274 and the answer is 262. Complete for rest of the airports.

Column 6 is Wind: You will get the wind direction and speed from GPWT maps for the selected ALT mentioned in column 2. Note: The directions mentioned in GPWT is true direction and the wind speed is in tens of knots.

Column 7: HDG(M): Given the TT (True Track), TAS (True Air Speed) and Wind direction and speed, calculate HDG using E6B and convert it to HDG(M)

Column 8: G/S (Ground Speed): Given the TT (True Track), TAS (True Air Speed) and Wind direction and speed, calculate G/S using E6B

Column 9: DIST (Distance): Calculate the distance of each leg using nautical scale

Column 10: ETI (Estimated Time Interval): Calculate ETI = DIST / Ground Speed * 60 in minutes

Column 11: EET (Estimated Elapsed Time): The first row EET value is same as ETI, then for the rest of the rows, EET = ETI + previous EET value.

Fuel Calculation:

Radios

Mud-Map

Flight Plan Submission

Event Planning

Pre-Flight Preparation using OzRunWays

Note: In my experience, it is always best to do the preparation using paper, and then use electronic flight bags to cross check.

Pre-Flight Packing Checklist

Water
Hat and Shades
Headphones
Phone, iPad (NAIPS and OzRunways) and Charger
Pilot Logbook

Post Flight Review

Update Log book
Discuss / review flight
Set plan for next navigation

RK !