ACS Alignment

FAA-S-ACS-15 — Private Pilot, Rotorcraft–Helicopter · Area of Operation I. Preflight Preparation · Task: Cross-Country Flight Planning

PA.I.D.K1 — route, charts & chart supplement PA.I.D.K2 — navigation log, fuel & time PA.I.D.R2 — fuel-reserve planning PA.I.D.S1 — prepare a nav log/plan

Cross-Country Flight Planning

Turning a line on a chart into a safe, legal, fuel-aware plan.

By the end of this lesson you can:

Build a navigation log: true course, magnetic heading, groundspeed, time, and fuel for each leg.
Apply wind correction and magnetic variation to convert true course to a compass heading.
State the VFR fuel-reserve rule and plan to a personal reserve well above the minimum.
Identify terrain, obstructions, and airspace along the route using the sectional and Chart Supplement.

1 · The big idea

Cross-country planning is the discipline of answering four questions before you lift off: Which way? (course and heading), How long? (groundspeed and time), How much fuel? (burn plus reserve), and What's in the way? (terrain, obstructions, airspace, weather). The tool that ties them together is the navigation log — a leg-by-leg table that turns a route into headings, times, and fuel checkpoints you can verify in flight.

Helicopters add their own wrinkles: you often fly lower and slower than airplanes, route choices are driven by autorotative options and forced-landing sites, and the R44's modest fuel capacity makes reserve planning unforgiving. Plan the route so you always have a survivable place to put it down.

2 · From true course to compass heading

The classic sequence: draw the course on the sectional and measure the true course (TC) against a meridian. Apply the wind correction angle to get true heading, correct for magnetic variation (east is least, west is best) to get magnetic heading, then apply deviation from the compass card to get the compass heading you'll actually fly. Groundspeed comes from your true airspeed adjusted for the headwind/tailwind component; time and fuel follow directly from groundspeed and burn rate.

3 · Watch: building a nav log step by step

Curated reference clip — “Cross Country Flight Planning Step by Step | Nav Log Example Part 1,” FlightInsight (YouTube). Airplane-based example, but the nav-log method is identical for helicopters; use your R44 TAS and fuel burn.

4 · Watch: filling in the calculations

Curated reference clip — “X/C Navigation Log Explained (WITH Calculations) PPL Lesson 46,” Free Pilot Training (YouTube). Walk-through of the heading/time/fuel math on the nav log.

5 · Fuel: plan to a reserve, not to empty

Under 14 CFR 91.151, day VFR requires enough fuel to fly to the first point of intended landing plus 30 minutes at normal cruise (45 minutes at night). Treat that as the legal floor, not the plan. Build the nav log so you reach each checkpoint with a comfortable margin, and pick alternates while you still have the fuel and daylight to use them.

Your aircraft: pull usable fuel capacity and cruise fuel burn from your Robinson R44 POH — Section 2 (Limitations) for capacities and Section 5 (Performance) for cruise burn/range. Compute endurance from your aircraft's published numbers and conditions — do not rely on a generic figure.

6 · Reference sources — use the authoritative charts

Navigation, charts & flight planning

📄 FAA Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge — Navigation & Flight Planning chapters 📄 FAA Helicopter Flying Handbook (landing page) 📄 FAA Chart Supplement (digital) 📄 14 CFR 91.151 — VFR fuel minimums

✍️ Fill in for the aircraft you fly (N-________)

Value / limit:

R44 POH section & page:

Leave blank until you look it up in your R44 POH (see the reference above) and confirm it with your CFI. Aircraft-specific numbers vary with weight & conditions — don’t guess.

Risk management (the “Consider”): the two classic cross-country traps are get-there-itis (pressing into deteriorating weather or daylight because you planned a destination, not a decision point) and thin fuel margins (planning to the 30-minute floor, then meeting a headwind). Build go/no-go gates and a real fuel reserve into the plan, and brief your forced-landing options leg by leg — especially over terrain with few landing sites.

7 · Knowledge check

ACS-coded — framed the way the written test asks it.