If you’re like me, one of the reasons you started flying was to go places. It’s not at all uncommon for the student pilot pounding around the pattern with an instructor to ask for a respite every now and then, perhaps a jaunt to a nearby airport, at the very least for a change of scenery. As experience and instructor confidence grows, that student eventually graduates to flying cross-countries to distant airports, which requires learning a completely new and different set of skills and concerns. That’s part of the training process—acclimating the student to new environments while developing understanding and respect for their differences.
Thanks in part to being a non-wealthy college student and then starting a career, the first handful of years after I earned my private certificate were spent just trying to maintain a three-bangs-and-goes level of currency. But as my economic situation improved with time, so did the desire to use the ticket to go places. It took this still-green private pilot a while to figure out how different the en route environment is and that many of the skills I needed to fly defensively outside the traffic pattern were poorly developed. Of particular concern when in the en route environment is that conflicting traffic—while always something we should search for and be concerned about—isn’t the only in-flight challenge when cruising off into the sunset.
