Planning, planning, planning.

The FAA requires that student pilots complete the following before they are eligible to take the checkride:

The student pilot must complete 5 hours of cross country flight that includes 1 solo cross country flight of at least 150nm total distance with full stop landings at 3 points and one segment of at least 50nm between T/O and landings.

I currently have 2 hours of cross country flying and my plan is to get the remaining 3 hours in one flight.

I'll leave Northampton and fly to Westfield Regional where I'll land, wait a few minutes and then take off.

From Westfield, I'll fly out over the Berkshires to Saratoga County in upstate New York where I'll land and wait a few minutes before taking off.

After that, I'll fly out over the Green Mountains to Lebanon New Hampshire. I'm not a big fan of Lebanon because the pattern takes you around a rather high hill that actually hides the airport runway from you just as you are getting ready to land.

From Lebanon, it's back to Westfield and finally back to Northampton.

That is a distance of more than 250nm with three legs of that flight in excess of 70nm. It should also take me around 3 hours to complete it.

After that, I need to do 5 hours of night flying with my instructor that includes one flight of at least 100nm and I think I will be able to schedule my checkride. That decision will be up to my instructor because he needs to make sure I've crossed all my "T"s and dotted all my "I"s before I schedule the FAA inspector.

Soon my friends.

Soon....

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Enjoy these links while I try to figure out what I want to watch this evening:

• Only in Florida.



• Also only in Florida.



• Even more proof that the fashion industry is insane.



• Only in Australia.



• They're a little weird in Seattle.



• Escaped Cows would be a great name for a 1970's pop music band.