I'm a fairly new pilot and I just completed a trip from New Mexico to Oshkosh, this is by far the longest cross country that I have made so far.It was a learning experience with weather playing an important part.What I learned on this trip was the value of using flight watch, how quickly ceilings can drop and why VFR pilots get into trouble.
My trip started with weather moving in from the south and flight service not recommending VFR flight,but I decided to poke our nose north to see if we could fly around the weather,luckily the weather broke near Taos NM and we flew over the mountains at 12,500 only to find scatterd clouds on the other side, all went well until Kansas where thunderstorms forced us to land and spend the night.The return trip had us flying into lowering ceilings until I felt uncomfortable so I made a precuationary landing to wait it out.Flight service informed us that the weather was improving and it was clear in the direction that we were flying, so we waited until we could see some blue sky then took off and climbed above the clouds towards our next destination.This trip also had me flying into New Mexico at night with the prospect of crossing over the mountains into Albuquerque, so altitude became our friend as I climbed to 12,500'.Approching Albuquerque and the mountain range I called flight watch one last time to make sure the ceilings where high enough then followed I-40 through the pass where I could see the city lights and new I was home safe.I wish during my initial flight training that the dual cross country portion would have been a more of a real world scenario with a longer trip required, flight watch being used and weather playing an important part of it, for a newer pilot I can see how with todays training, or lack of training, a pilot could get in over their heads quickly.
All in all this was a wonderful trip and a great learning experience. I now feel much more confident in planning and using the tools available to us to complete a long cross country.

AW



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2008 12:53PM by alex.

Ditto on the IFR rating, best money I spent..next best money was the 396 to get the wx, huge help.

Nice! I found that my instrument rating has helped quite a bit too. We flew from Boston to Phoenix and that was quite a trip. One of my more favorable flights. Glad everything went well.

Jason, which airport did you land at in the phx area??