Cross-Country -- References

I have tried to put together a good list of references where you may go for more information about basic aviation that I referred to in my series on my recent cross-country flight. This is not meant to be a thorough bibliography on general aviation or learning how to fly, rather it is meant as an introduction to some important concepts. I have grouped the references by the related article (with a link). It is not necessarily my intent for you to read all of these references, rather that you may want to check out a couple of the links that might be of particular interest to you.

Over the next few days, I will be working on adding some of this information to the aviation links and info page of this blog, so stay tuned for that. I have worked hard to ensure that all these links work, if you should find a broken link, please post a comment.

Part 2, what is a cross country:

• The Association of Aircraft Owners and Pilots (AOPA) has a website devoted to learning how to fly, including free resources, it may be found here.
• Definition cross-country from FAR: The Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) defines cross-country time in some detail in FAR Part 61.1 paragraph (b)(4)

Parts 3 and 4, planning for the flight and plotting the course:
Air space

• Airspace for Everyone is one of the documents in the Safety Advisor Series from the Airplane Owner's and Pilot's Association's (AOPA) Air Safety Foundation (ASF). In the short Airspace for Everyone document (SA02) you will learn about the different classes of airspace in the U.S., as mandated by the Federal Aviation Regulations. Illustrations accompany the text. I think that this is a good place to start if you want an overview of airspace in the U.S.
• The ASF's Airspace Guide, shows how different airspace is designated on NACO's aeronautic charts. I referred to this often when I was learning about how airspace is depicted on aero charts, and continue to use this as a resource.

Aeronautical Charts

• Page 8 of NASA's aviation navigation tutorial brings you to an interactive page on the symbols used on aeronautical charts.
• For the complete scoop on all of NACO's aeronautical charts, there is the freely available NACO Aeronautical Chart User's Guide (11th edition). This guide is broken down into six sections, two sections apply to sectional, terminal and a couple of other charts used when flying under VFR, Introduction to VFR symbols and VFR Chart Symbols
• The FAA makes digital versions of the NACO charts available for GPS devices. I have been able to read these files in my pdf viewer software. The files are very large. To access these charts go here.

Flight Restrictions
For more information about temporary flight restrictions, visit the FAA TFR website.

Weather

• Weatherwise Safety Advisory from the AOPA's Air Safety Foundation (ASF) website may be found here. This is a good intro to aviation weather.
• The ASF has a few freely available interactive courses on weather and aviation (Weatherwise), they are located here along with the ASF's other interactive courses.

Part 5, take-off from KABE:

• Information on Lehigh Valley International Airport including, but not limited to a map of the airport is freely available from flightaware.com, it may be found here
• The ASF has a very nice interactive course, Pinch Hitter Interactive Course where you learn about basic aerodynamics, control of the airplane, and emergency operations. It takes about 4 to 60 minutes to go through the course. It is designed for people who fly regularly with a pilot, but I think that anyone interested in learning something about basic aviation will benefit from the course.

Part 6, navigation and radio communications:

• Airspace for Everyone
• Avweb got permission to from the AOPA to post an article from the AOPA's Flight Training publication on Class B Airspace.

Part 7, more on radio communications:

• To read about flight following services see this, read this Avweb article.
• From Pilot Friend on the phonetic alphabet used in aviation radio communications, go here.
• I deleted the reference to Pilot Friend's article on pilot-controller communications because it refers to flights under instrument flight rules (IFR). While the sequence of communications is similar to that used by pilots flying under visual flight rules, I thought that the references to IFR and IFR routes might confuse some. I'll try to look for another short article to post here.

Part 8, Tappan Zee Bridge and KHPN:

• If you are interested in reading more about the Tappan Zee Bridge, go here.
• Taxiing signals from pilot friend. 
• A map of the Westchester County Airport, and other information about the airport may be found on Flight Aware, go here.

revised on March 11, 2013