Part 61 Flight Training

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Lesson 14, To solo cross-country

The triangle again

Flight: The triangle

10 NM 10 NM
FAA Detroit sectional, 29 OCT 2026 edition. For briefing, not for navigation: fly from the current chart. Tap the chart to open it full size.

Today's flight

Plan the triangle for the day you can pick a friend up at Willow Run (KYIP): KARB to Tecumseh Mills (22T), on to KYIP, and home. Today I play the friend waiting at KYIP. You plan it and fly it, and I may add a crosswind day, a diversion or a failure along the way. It's the same planning you will do for the trip you named in lesson 2.

Today the wind at 22T is more crosswind than your minimums. Do you skip it, and if so, what does the trip become? Once the triangle goes well, the next step is flying alone to each field, on separate flights: KARB to 22T and back, and KARB to KYIP and back, to practice takeoffs and landings there, under the limits I write in your endorsement.

Every flight

Before every flight

  1. Pilot. Am I fit to fly today? IMSAFE:
    • Illness
    • Medication
    • Stress
    • Alcohol
    • Fatigue
    • Emotion, and eating
  2. Aircraft. Is this airplane ready, and right for today? Documents, inspections and open squawks; fuel and oil on board; weight, balance and performance for today's load.
  3. Environment. What will today's flight meet? NWKRAFT, what 14 CFR 91.103 asks you to know before every flight, then the airspace and the route:
    • NOTAMs and TFRs
    • Weather, against your minimums
    • Known ATC delays
    • Runway lengths
    • Alternates
    • Fuel required, with reserve
    • Takeoff and landing distances
    • Airspace: the Class B limits from the current chart
    • The trip: heading, time, landmarks, wind and runway
  4. External pressures. What is pushing me to go today: a passenger, a schedule, a plan I don't want to cancel? Would I go without it?
  5. If it goes wrong. The takeoff emergency brief, out loud: an engine problem on the runway, after liftoff with runway left, and after liftoff without.
  6. Who flies. Who does what today, and how we hand the controls back and forth.

Who runs it today: You, unprompted, and you brief me. On the solo flights you do it alone, and I check it before I sign you off.

Deeper today: Weather and The trip. The wind at each field against your minimums, with the crosswind worked out for each runway; a navigation log for every leg; and an airport picked for each leg to divert to, before you leave the ground.

Recall

From earlier lessons

  1. What do you read from the chart for each leg of the triangle?

    Reveal answer

    The Class B floors on the leg, a maximum altitude below them, and a turn-back point before the surface area east of KYIP.

  2. How do you join the pattern at 22T?

    Reveal answer

    Listen on the CTAF, announce, then join on the 45 to midfield downwind at pattern altitude for the runway the wind and the traffic call for.

  3. You planned 8 minutes to a checkpoint and it took 11. What does that tell you?

    Reveal answer

    The wind is stronger, or from a different direction, than forecast. Work out a new groundspeed, time home and fuel.

  4. What is the most crosswind you may land in solo, and where does it come from?

    Reveal answer

    The limit in your endorsement, set from what you have flown with me and within the club's limits.

Why A field beyond your minimums today isn't a stop today, and deciding that on the ground costs nothing.

Skipping a stop

  • Work out the crosswind for every runway at every stop.
  • Beyond your minimums: plan the trip without that field, and say how the route changes.
  • 22T has no weather report. Check the nearest ones again in the air.
  • Your minimums grow with your logbook, not with the day's plans.

Why Plans change in the air: weather, a closed runway, someone on board who feels sick, a rough engine.

The diversion

  • Before departure, pick an airport for each leg and know which way it is.
  • In the air, turn toward it first, then work out heading, distance, time and fuel.
  • Use what's quick: the chart, your thumb, the heading indicator and the clock.
  • Tell someone on the radio, and keep looking outside while you work.

Why Flying a friend somewhere is why you're learning, so today you plan like it.

Plan it like a trip

  • A navigation log for each leg.
  • The limits block for each leg, from the current chart.
  • Runways, frequencies and the pattern at each field, from the Chart Supplement.
  • A go or no-go for each stop, out loud, with the reason.

Why Taking off and landing alone at another airport is the step between the home pattern and the cross-country.

Solo to 22T and KYIP

  • One airport per trip, out and back from KARB. No solo triangle.
  • The reason for the trip is takeoffs and landings there.
  • Each airport gets its own endorsement, with its own conditions.
  • Stay under the floors and west of the surface area. You're under the Class B, never in it.

Why Now that you've soloed, I can add things without warning, in safe conditions, so you meet startle before the checkride.

Surprises

  • A simulated failure, a request to divert, a runway change.
  • Fly the airplane first, then work out what happened.
  • Say what you're doing out loud, as if I weren't there.
  • It's always in safe conditions: plenty of height and somewhere to land.

A real accident

On August 1, 1991, a student pilot with 26 hours flew a Cessna 140 from Marshall, Michigan, to Cadillac, Michigan, and arrived with the wind from 270 at 13 knots gusting to 20, straight across sod runway 18. After three go-arounds she tried again to land; the airplane rolled a short way and nosed over, substantially damaged, and she was not hurt. The NTSB found the cause in improper compensation for the wind, with the gusty crosswind and her lack of experience as factors. The go-arounds were good calls. The decision point came after them: a field with a wind beyond your minimums is one to divert from, not to keep trying. That is today's question at 22T. NTSB report CHI91LA238

Your calls

Decision points

  • Skip 22T or not, from the wind against your minimums: on the ground, and again when you hear the weather in the air.
  • Where to divert when I ask, or when something on the leg makes you want to.
  • For each solo flight to 22T or KYIP: go or no-go, against the conditions in that endorsement.

The whole flight

Also on this flight

Part of the flightWho
Every-flight routine, navigation log, limits blockYou, unprompted; you brief me
Preflight, start, taxi, runup, takeoffYou
Navigation and radio on every legYou
Patterns and landings: at least two at 22T (if you keep it) and two at KYIPYou
At least one diversion, and one unannounced failure or runway changeI add them in safe conditions; you handle them
Back to KARB, shutdown and securingYou
61.93(b)(1) endorsements for 22T and KYIPInstructor, one for each airport, when you're ready
Solo trips to 22T and to KYIP, one flight each, about an hour: at least three takeoffs and landings at the field, the last a full stopYou, alone; I check the routine and the conditions before each
DebriefBoth, you first

The standard

Ready to move on when

  • You plan the whole trip yourself and make a reasoned go or no-go for each stop.
  • When asked to divert, you turn promptly toward a sensible airport and give a reasonable heading, distance, time and fuel, in the spirit of task VI.C in the Private ACS.
  • You handle an unannounced failure safely, flying first and saying what you're doing.
  • On each solo trip, you stay inside every condition in that airport's endorsement, as 14 CFR 61.93(b)(1) requires.

At home, before the next flight

Chair fly it

  • The next flights put the handbook's performance charts to work on short and soft fields. Read your airplane's Performance section in its handbook (linked from its page on michiganflyers.org/aircraft): what makes takeoff and landing distances longer?
  • Read the short-field and soft-field takeoff sections of the takeoffs and departure climbs chapter, and the short-field and soft-field approach sections of the approaches and landings chapter, in the Airplane Flying Handbook.
  • Chair fly a short-field and a soft-field takeoff and landing with the club checklist.
  • Before each solo trip to 22T or KYIP, chair fly it: the route, the limits block, the calls and your turn-back point.

After the flight

Debrief

You go first, then the instructor. Three points at most, and you write down one thing to work on next time.

  • Your first trip you planned all yourself: which part of the plan earned its keep in the air?
  • When did you decide about 22T, and what decided it?
  • How did the diversion go? What did you do first?

Notes for teaching this lesson

Before the flight

  • Pick a day with a real crosswind at 22T beyond the student's minimums if one comes along. If not, set it up as a scenario on the ground.
  • Unannounced failures are now allowed after solo, in safe conditions: plenty of altitude, landable terrain below, and never low in a pattern.
  • 61.93(b)(1) reads as one airport per trip. It authorizes solo flights from the airport where the student trains to another airport within 25 NM, after training on that route in both directions, for the purpose of practicing takeoffs and landings there. A 22T to KYIP leg is not a flight from the training airport, so it falls outside (b)(1) and would need the full 61.93(c) solo cross-country endorsements. AC 61-65K's A.8 wording names a single airport, so give one endorsement for 22T and one for KYIP, each with its conditions.
  • Only the instructor who gave the (b)(1) training may sign it (61.93(b)(1)(ii)). If someone else flew part of lesson 10 with the student, sort that out first.
  • Field data for both airports is in lesson 10's teaching notes. Recheck it against the current Chart Supplement.

In the air

  • Common errors: computing before turning when asked to divert; a poor guess at the alternate's direction; pressing on to 22T because it was in the plan; climbing into a shelf while busy with the diversion.
  • After the surprise, let the student finish handling it before you say anything.
  • If it isn't working (the diversion stalls, or the student falls behind at KYIP), fly the triangle again dual before any solo trip.

Curveballs

After solo, some may be unannounced, always in safe conditions: plenty of height, landable terrain below, never low in a pattern.

  • Unannounced: "My friend just called, KYIP's closed, take me to another airport." A diversion from mid-leg.
  • Unannounced: a simulated rough engine on the 22T to KYIP leg, with plenty of height and fields below.
  • Unannounced: a simulated radio failure approaching KYIP, flown with the lost comms steps.
  • Briefed: a crosswind at 22T beyond the student's minimums, real or set as a scenario on the ground.
  • Briefed: a runway change from the tower on downwind at KYIP.

After the flight

  • Mark the first: the first trip the student planned alone.
  • Give each airport's endorsement when the student is ready, with conditions written out, within the club's limits. Each names its airport and lists conditions such as a maximum altitude under the shelves and no flight east of KYIP. KYIP is under the Class B, not in it, so no Class B endorsement is needed.
  • Before each solo trip: weather against the endorsement's conditions, the routine, the limits block and the turn-back point east of KYIP.