Preparing For My First Long Cross Counntry

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I would follow Richard's advice and go on our first long cross country. This one is going to be a long one, 3 hours long. He gave me the places that he wants to go and had me plan the trip myself, but asked me to walk across the street and let him look at it for final approval. Our flight plan will take us from KTKI (McKinney) to F46 (Rockwall) to KGVL (Gainesville) then stop at KCWC (Kikapoo Downtown Wichita Falls). we will refuel in Wichita Falls then intercept the V355 airway at an intersection called HUNKI and take it to UKW (the Bowie VOR station) and then take a direct course back to TKI. Below is a track that I did on SkyVector.com.

The track of my first cross country.

This trip should take 3 hours in a Cessna 150 but I'll be flying a 172. The 172 has a much higher cruise speed so I may be throttling back quite a bit to stretch this out. We will be working on several things. My ability to track a course and correct for wind, ability to see if I am on course by using dead reckoning and finding objects on the map as checkpoints. we'll also be working on my ability to find radials off of several VOR stations and maybe alter our course if we need to kill some time.

Lastly, I need this to start getting caught up on hours that I lost last year because of my job and all of the travel. My new job won't have me traveling so much and I have made a very concerted effort to fly as much as I can this year. When January is over, I will have flown over 4 hours. Tis is already 20% as much as I flew all of last year.

I'll be posting a recap of the flight sometime later in the week. I can't wait.