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Tandy wrote: > The trip is beginning to sound better all the time. I > guess that one of my concerns is the amount of > restricted area back east. Tandy, There're not that many obstacles on the route to Connecticut. If you have a transponder, you can pass south of Chicago and Cleveland and north of Canton and Youngstown and way north of New York City. If you don't have a transponder, you might want to pass south of Youngstown and north of Pittsburg. But the doglegs aren't very acute and the length of the path isn't that much longer than a straight line. Useful website: http://aviationtoolbox.org/raw_data/FAA/sectionals/ In some ways, travel around restricted airspace is easier these days. On my two trips to the East, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, I started my flight planning on the sectionals I spread out on the conference table. First of all, I eyeballed the maps for airspace restricted to my no-transponder bird and preferences. By eye, I figured out whether I'd need to go by the north or south side or the bad air. I put a mark on the map on a location that would give me a straight line from the previous waypoint and to the next waypoint both. These interim waypoints were not placed too close to the obstacle but offset a way. Then, I drew a long line on the map from the starting point to the first waypoint, then the next, till the destination. Third, I carefully determined the latitude and longitude of the waypoints, checking each THREE times, each measurement from scratch. Now-a-days, you could easily cross-check the lat/lon with a mapping program like Microsoft Streets and Trips and Google Earth - especially if you pick a notable landmark for your waypoint. After that, I made a list of the center longitude/latitude of the obstacle (since they were mostly round, being based on airports) and noted the distance I had to stay out to be outside the edge of the bad air. Finally, I put my waypoints into my loran (now GPS) as waypoints and combined them into a route. I also entered the centers of the obstacles (big airports, mostly) into the gadget. Finally, as I flew from waypoint to waypoint, I kept my finger on my map, following the drawn pencil/highlighted line, always knowing where I was and cross checking against the ground almost every time I passed a town or landmark. The loran (now gps) would tell me my off track error and I was always pleased how close it kept me to my drawn line. By following my position on the map, I always had the nearest couple of airports in my mind. When flying high, I was usually within gliding distance of an airport, not to mention the many nice fields (until I got to the forests). As I was passing by the bad airspace, I'd switch back and forth from the next waypoint to the bad airspace center in order to double check my distance from the center - to be sure I had the clearance distance I intended. Between my line and finger on the map cross-checked out the window, my loran telling me my off-track error and the loran cross-check of the distance from the bad airspace center, I was able to cruise in a mighty relaxed way. Now-a-days, you'll have to check the TFRs right before you go and with Flight Service a time or three as you fly along and make adjustments as needed. But I found it pretty easy to handle the trip to Connecticut. Look at the Florida map if you want to see come cramped airspace for us no-transponder travelers. ============================================================================== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm
