Ask a student pilot what took longest on their first solo cross-country and the answer is rarely the flight. It is the evening before: a sectional spread across the kitchen table, a plotter, an E6B, a handful of weather tabs open in the browser, a NOTAM list that scrolls for pages, and a nav log redone from the top because the winds aloft changed.
Flight planning is hard for a structural reason: every input depends on another. The route depends on the airspace and the terrain. The altitude depends on the route's direction, the terrain and the winds. The winds set the groundspeed, which sets the time, which sets the fuel, which may add a stop, which changes the route. Change one thing and you recompute everything after it.
This guide walks through what a thorough VFR cross-country plan involves when you do it by hand, step by step. Then it shows how the Flight Suite EFB and its route planner, FlightMatrix HQ, take you from two airport identifiers to a checked route and a complete nav log in a few clicks.
See the Flight Suite EFB and FlightMatrix HQ → The VFR route, the cruise altitude, the fuel stops and the nav log, planned for you from the same FAA and NOAA data you would use by hand.
What does the regulation require before a cross-country?
14 CFR 91.103 requires the pilot in command to become familiar with all available information concerning a flight before it begins. For a flight not in the vicinity of an airport, that explicitly includes weather reports and forecasts, fuel requirements, the alternatives available if the planned flight cannot be completed, and any known traffic delays ATC has advised. For every flight it includes runway lengths at the airports of intended use, and takeoff and landing distance information.
"All available information" is a high bar. In practice it breaks down into the steps below, and most of them feed each other.
What do you need to plan a flight by hand?
The traditional kit is short, but every item in it does a lot of work:
- A current sectional chart, and the terminal area chart near Class B airspace. FAA VFR charts are revised on a 56-day cycle, so an old chart can be missing a new tower or a changed airspace boundary.
- A plotter to measure true course and distance.
- An E6B flight computer, mechanical or electronic, for wind correction, groundspeed, true airspeed, time, fuel and density altitude.
- The Chart Supplement for each airport: runways, pattern altitude and direction, frequencies, the fuel sold there and the hours someone is there to sell it.
- The aircraft's POH or AFM for cruise performance, the climb's time, fuel and distance, takeoff and landing distances, and the weight and balance envelope.
- Weather and NOTAM sources: Flight Service at 1800wxbrief.com, aviationweather.gov, and the FAA's list of temporary flight restrictions.
- A blank navigation log, a pencil and an eraser. Mostly the eraser.
Step 1: Check the weather, first and last
Weather decides whether the flight happens at all, so it comes first. It also changes, so it comes last too. A thorough look covers:
- METARs for current conditions at the departure, the destination and the airports along the way, and TAFs for the forecast at your departure and arrival times.
- The Graphical Forecasts for Aviation (GFA) for clouds, visibility and surface winds across the region.
- AIRMETs and SIGMETs, including G-AIRMETs, for IFR conditions, mountain obscuration, turbulence and icing, and convective SIGMETs for thunderstorms.
- PIREPs, the only reports of what pilots are actually finding aloft.
- Winds and temperatures aloft, which feed every heading and groundspeed on the nav log.
Then compare all of it against the VFR weather minimums in 14 CFR 91.155 for each class of airspace you will fly through, and against your personal minimums, which should be stricter. A standard briefing from Flight Service, online or at 1-800-WX-BRIEF, brings most of it together in one place.
Step 2: Draw a route around airspace, terrain and TFRs
A straight line from A to B is the easy part. Then the line meets the chart:
- Controlled airspace. Class B requires an ATC clearance to enter. Class C and Class D require two-way radio communication established before you enter. Within the Mode C veil, 30 nm around a Class B primary airport from the surface to 10,000 ft MSL, you need an altitude-reporting transponder and ADS-B Out (14 CFR 91.215 and 91.225).
- Special use airspace. Prohibited areas you may never enter, restricted areas you may not enter while they are active, MOAs and warning areas where military aircraft train, and alert areas with unusual activity.
- Temporary flight restrictions, which come and go by NOTAM: VIP movements, stadium events, fires and airshows. A route that is clear today may not be clear tomorrow.
- Terrain and obstacles. The maximum elevation figure in each quadrangle, the towers along the line, and the minimum safe altitudes in 14 CFR 91.119.
- Open water and remote stretches, where the question becomes whether you could glide to land, or to a field, if the engine quit.
Every conflict means a dogleg, and every dogleg means a new course, a new distance and new checkpoints. Going over or under an airspace instead of around it is sometimes legal and sometimes not: it depends on the airspace's floors and ceilings, your equipment and the clearances you plan to ask for. Under a Class B, that means reading the floor of every shelf you cross.
Finally, pick checkpoints every 10 to 15 nm that you will actually be able to see from the air: a town, a lake, a highway interchange, a distinctive tower.
Step 3: Choose a cruise altitude
Three things pull on the altitude at once:
- The hemispheric rule. More than 3,000 ft above the surface, 14 CFR 91.159 puts VFR traffic on a magnetic course of 0 to 179 degrees at odd thousands plus 500 ft (3,500, 5,500, 7,500) and on 180 to 359 degrees at even thousands plus 500 ft (4,500, 6,500, 8,500).
- Terrain, obstacles and airspace. High enough to clear the ground and glide somewhere useful, low enough to stay under a Class B shelf you are not cleared into, and clear of the cloud by the distances the minimums require.
- The winds. A 20-knot headwind at 7,500 ft against light winds at 3,500 ft can change the trip time and the fuel more than any other choice you make.
Doing this properly means working the nav log at two or three candidate altitudes and comparing them. By hand, almost nobody does.
Step 4: Build the nav log, leg by leg
This is the arithmetic, and it is where the time goes. For each leg:
- Measure the true course and the distance with the plotter.
- Read the winds aloft at your altitude, interpolating between the forecast levels and stations. The forecast gives the wind direction from true north.
- Find the true airspeed from the POH's cruise table at that altitude and temperature.
- Use the E6B to find the wind correction angle and the groundspeed.
- Apply the wind correction to get the true heading, then the magnetic variation from the isogonic lines on the chart ("east is least, west is best") to get the magnetic heading, then the deviation card for the compass heading.
- Divide the distance by the groundspeed for the time, and multiply the time by the fuel flow for the fuel.
Then the parts that do not fit neatly into a leg: the climb to cruise, with its time, fuel and distance from the POH's climb chart and the taxi and run-up fuel on top; the top of climb and the top of descent; and the descent itself. Add up the legs and you have the estimated time en route and the fuel it needs.
A three-leg trip is twenty-odd calculations, each depending on the one before it. Read the winds wrong and every number below them is wrong too. Get a new winds forecast the next morning and you do it all again.
Step 5: Plan the fuel and any fuel stops
The legal minimum is in 14 CFR 91.151: under VFR, enough fuel to fly to the first point of intended landing and then, at normal cruising speed, for at least 30 more minutes by day or 45 minutes at night. Many pilots and schools set a larger personal reserve, often an hour.
When the trip plus the reserve is more than the usable fuel, you need a stop, and finding one by hand is a project of its own. Find airports near where the tanks would run low. Check in the Chart Supplement that they sell the fuel you burn, 100LL for most piston trainers, and that someone will be there to sell it when you arrive. Check the price. Then plan the route and the nav log again, in two parts.
Step 6: Work out the timing
Time touches everything, and aviation keeps it in two forms. METARs, TAFs, NOTAMs and TFRs are all written in UTC (Zulu); your watch is not. For each flight you need:
- The departure and arrival times in UTC, to read the TAF for the right hours and to know whether a TFR or a restricted area is active while you are there.
- Sunset and the end of evening civil twilight. Night, for the 45-minute reserve and for logging night time, begins at the end of evening civil twilight. Takeoffs and landings toward night currency count only from an hour after sunset.
- FBO and tower hours at the destination and at any fuel stop.
A late start or a stronger headwind pushes the arrival back, and a flight planned for the day can become a night flight with a larger fuel reserve to carry.
Step 7: Weight, balance and performance
With the fuel known, you can work out the weight and balance: people, bags and fuel against the envelope in the POH, at takeoff and again at landing as the fuel burns off. Then the takeoff and landing distances at each airport's elevation and the day's temperature. That is where density altitude turns a comfortable runway into a short one on a hot afternoon.
Step 8: NOTAMs, the go/no-go and the flight plan
Read the NOTAMs for the departure, the destination and the alternates, and along the route: closed runways, unlit towers, parachute jumping, drone operations, airshows. Then make an honest go/no-go decision, ideally with a flight risk assessment that scores the weather, the time of day, the pilot and the aircraft. Finally, file a VFR flight plan with Flight Service so that someone comes looking if you do not arrive, remember to open it after takeoff and close it when you land, and plan to ask for flight following.
How long does it take to plan a cross-country by hand?
For an experienced pilot on a familiar route, the paperwork might take half an hour. For a student planning a first cross-country, an hour or two at the kitchen table is common. And the plan starts aging as soon as it is finished: the winds aloft forecast is issued four times a day, TAFs are amended, and TFRs appear at short notice. That is the real problem with planning by hand. It is not only slow to do. It is slow to change.
How does Flight Suite HQ make flight planning simple?
The Flight Suite EFB works through the same steps, in the same order, from the same FAA and NOAA data a pilot uses by hand. The difference is that it does the arithmetic, keeps every number tied to every other, and works the lot again the moment something changes. Here is the same cross-country, the Flight Suite way.
1. Choose the aircraft
Pick a school aircraft or one of your own performance profiles. Its cruise speed, fuel burn and fuel on board carry through everything that follows. Figures you have not filled in use conservative defaults for the type, and anything you type yourself is labeled as yours.
2. Let FlightMatrix HQ plan the route
Type the departure and the destination and tap FlightMatrix. Tick the airspace you are willing to enter (Class B, C or D, or a Mode C veil) and FlightMatrix HQ plans a VFR route between the two airports, up to 600 nm in one go. The route keeps:
- Clear of active TFRs for the time of your flight, and of prohibited and restricted areas.
- Clear of terrain within 1,000 ft of the cruise altitude.
- Out of the airspace you did not tick. Where the rules allow, it flies over or under instead of going round, and says so with the height to keep: over a Class B or D at any time, under a Class C's outer shelf, and, with Mode C ticked, under a Class B's shelves or over a Class C.
- Within gliding distance of land, and clear of warning areas, unless you allow them. When that leaves no route, or a much longer one, it tells you what allowing them would save, with a button to plan again.
- At a VFR cruise altitude by the hemispheric rule, choosing among the lowest few that work.
- Fueled. It plans fuel stops where the tanks would run short, at airports the FAA lists with 100LL, from your fuel on board, your day or night reserve, the climb and the forecast winds.
Every leg comes with the reason it goes where it goes. The route lands in the route bar like one you drew yourself, so the usual airspace, TFR, terrain and fuel checks run on it, and you can change it the same way. Steps 2, 3 and 5 above take a few taps.
3. Read the nav log it builds
The nav log fills in at once: course, heading, groundspeed, time and fuel for every leg against the NOAA winds aloft forecast, with the top of climb and the top of descent, the fuel stops at the FBO's price where we have one, and the reserve your fuel policy asks for. Compare cruise altitudes side by side, each with its time, fuel and wind, and pick one. No E6B, no interpolating, no eraser.
4. Brief the route
The route briefing gathers what Steps 1 and 8 send you hunting for: every NOTAM within 25 nm of the route in the order you reach it, the GFA cloud and surface charts for the region, and the winds aloft at every station along the way. Each airport has its METARs, TAFs and decoded NOTAMs. On the chart you can turn on radar, satellite, AIRMETs and SIGMETs, PIREPs and the convective outlook, plus a winds aloft layer from 3,000 to 18,000 ft and a forecast layer with each airport's expected conditions and the G-AIRMETs up to 12 hours ahead. On the website, a vertical profile draws the terrain, the charted obstacles and every airspace crossing under your cruise altitude.
5. Finish the paperwork
- Weight and balance against your aircraft's envelope, with the planned fuel.
- A flight risk assessment with weather, night and pilot factors, so the go/no-go is a number you can look at.
- The ICAO flight plan form, filled in from your route, aircraft and fuel, ready to copy into 1800wxbrief until filing straight from the app opens.
- Airport details: runways, frequencies, the traffic pattern, and the fuel each field sells with its price where we have one.
6. Take it with you
Save the charts and the route's data before you go, and in the Flight Suite HQ app for iPhone, iPad and Android the chart, the plates and your plan keep working with no signal. In Fly mode the flight strip shows your groundspeed, track, desired track, cross-track error, the time to the next waypoint and the nearest airport, with terrain and obstacle alerts and a spoken callout when airspace is ahead.
What used to take an evening, in a few clicks
- The route. By hand: drawn and redrawn on the sectional around every airspace, TFR, ridge and stretch of water. In the EFB: one request to FlightMatrix HQ, with the reason for every leg.
- The cruise altitude. By hand: usually one, because comparing three is too much arithmetic. In the EFB: several side by side.
- The nav log. By hand: twenty-odd E6B calculations. In the EFB: filled in from the winds aloft forecast, and filled in again when anything changes.
- The fuel stops. By hand: the Chart Supplement, a phone call and a second nav log. In the EFB: planned at airports with 100LL, with the price where we have one.
- The briefing. By hand: a handful of websites. In the EFB: the NOTAMs along the route, the GFA, the winds aloft, the METARs and TAFs, together.
- The flight plan. By hand: written out field by field. In the EFB: filled in from the plan.
Does automated flight planning replace pilot judgment?
No, and it should not. The pilot in command is still responsible for the flight and for the preflight action 91.103 requires. FlightMatrix HQ is a planning aid built on FAA data and public elevation models, not a certified navigation source. Check the route it gives you against the chart before you fly it, read the briefing yourself, and keep your personal minimums. What it takes away is the arithmetic and the busywork, so that your planning time goes on the decisions that matter: whether to go, which way, and what you will do if the plan has to change.
It is still worth planning a cross-country by hand at least once, especially as a student. The knowledge test and the checkride expect you to know how the numbers are made, and the EFB is a quick way to check your work.
Plan your next cross-country in a few clicks
If your flight school runs on Flight Suite HQ, the EFB is already part of your school's subscription. If you fly on your own, it is available to you as a pilot, with your logbook kept with your account rather than with any school.
Explore the Flight Suite EFB and FlightMatrix HQ → See every feature, how it compares with ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot and iFly EFB, and how to start.
