For "Pilotgirl" re Finding The Airport

[Bill Greenwood]

There are at least two ways to find your destination airport at the end of a cross country leg. One is to look on the sectional chart before the trip and find some landmark the gives you a clue, either as you approach the airport area. Such as there being a big 4 land highway you cross or a river or power line, etc. Notice if the airport is just outside town or inside the populated urban area. That is easy to see on the chart. Especially notice if there is only only runway or an X of two or more. And of course many of the larger airports have VOR on the field so that with DME can be an exact lead in. However I would practice doing it visually first and have the vor or gps be a backup so that you really learn it from the basics up.

There is another way that I have used as an aid which really helps. Several companies publish small charts of each airport. Airguide is the main one that I have used over the years. This gives you critical info, such as that the airport is 5 MILES NORTHWEST OF TOWN, or maybe 5 Miles South of the vor, etc. It gives the airport elevation so you can plan what altitude that you need to descend too, and the atis or awos, approach and tower or unicom radio freqencies, and runway lenghts and details. The diagram gives the runway layout and whether hard surface or not. It is a lot harder to find a single small grass runway than a major airport with mulitiple 8000' concrete ones.
Airguide used to publish this info in a small binder about 3x5 which was very convenient and would even fit in a pocket of a shirt or a flight suit map pocket. I flew a fast airplane all over the country for 20 years and used this. But some marketing genius who is likely not a pilot decided they needed to cram all lot more info in on each page and so the book is now way too big to fit in a pocket and the vital info is harder to dig out. Still a good source. They may also have a computer version so that you could print out the pages you need, but nothing was as useful as having it all there.
Others ,like AOPA have similar books, but again not the small convenient ones. I use the AOPA one for preflight planning, often calling ahead to ask about fuel or rent a car etc. Most states also publish a free similar guide to their airports, but if you fly very far you may need more than one state.

The pinnacle may be the Jeppesen airport charts. I don't mean an instrument approach chart, but rather an actual air photo, in color, of the runways and surroundings as it really looks when you fly in. If you can find one, take a look at the one for Aspen. Ask an airline or charter pilot if they have this so that you can take a look at one.

You will also develop better eyesight for finding the airports as you go along. Remember there has to be a runway, so some clear area even if small, not counting water or heliports. There may or may not be hangars, etc. and sometimes the runway stands out like blacktop in a brown field and sometimes it blends in, like old pavement faded to grey.

You can certainly overfly the area to see the airport better. Just slow down, stay 1000 feet above the pattern and watch out for traffic. If there is a unicom you can always announce "Niagara traffic, yellow Harvard is 5 south and will be flying over the runway at 2000'. " or similar. Then move a few miles away and descend so as to join on downwind. Keep the radio calls brief and to the point, since another pilot may need to talk also.