Upward. Now Onward

In my story of acquiring wings I left you having reached the heady goal of flying solo. The freedom is, however, restricted to in the pattern to practice takeoffs, landings, and radio communication, and out to the practice area to work on ascents, descents, turns, and stalls. I’ve inserted a diagram of The Pattern which is the world of a student pilot, in that most of our time is spent here going around and around, up and down. An hour’s practice time for me added up to 10 or so “trips around the pattern” with landings. Just as I began to chafe at the limitations, Bob added a dual (means with instructor) cross country trip to another airport.
So many things to learn, that the planning takes longer than the actual flight.
Reading a sectional. Seattle (portion shown above)covers all of Washington State, a bit of western Idaho, and Oregon as far south as Corvallis. On it, I plan the route of flight, noting waypoints, such as other airports along the way, rivers and mountains, for example.
Airport Facility Directory, which covers all of WA, OR, ID, MT and WY. Here I look up runway length and headings, pattern direction, communication frequencies – basically anything a pilot needs to know about a destination airport before landing.
Specialty tools. Plotter – used to measure/mark direction and distances on the Sectional. E6B – used to deduce expected fuel use and winds.
Flight Plan. Having planned the flight, all the information is noted on a form and called into Flight Watch a telephone or radio service that gives weather information, opens and closes flight plans, and provides pilots with additional information that may be available for their route of flight. By the time I’d started to understand enough to make the flight, home seemed a lot more comfortable, but I was eager for the challenge. We found the airport; I landed the plane making several circuits of the pattern, and returned back to my home airport. My first non-home airport was like any other first – fright to fulfillment.