Before I left the school, Michael had hinted that we might get to Turkey Mountain tomorrow to practice Soft Field techniques. For having looked at the sectional, I know that the airport is fairly far away. So I think I can put in place a flight plan. After the semi-failure of the trip to Fort Smith, I want to prove that I can establish a plan and follow it properly.

Locating Turkey Mountain Airport

The first thing is to locate the airport on the map. Considering how much time I have spent looking that this map in the past, I knew exactly the position of the airport.  It is about 30 nautical miles north east of the Bentonville airport.

The airport code for Turkey Mountain is MO00. I should look for more information but Turkey Mountain is a private airport and is not listed in the official Airport/Facility Directory so I can get only the information from the sectional.

Now, I have to take a decision:

1. I can decide to use a direct route.
2. Use different radio navigation waypoints

When going to Fort Smith, I used the second methods and it did not serve me too well. I know that Michael wanted me to use the direct route for the Fort Smith trip. So I’ve decided to use the first method and do it the way Michael wanted it to go to Turkey Mountain.

Locating the closest VOR

But I usually like to use the radio navigation because you don’t need external visual reference to find your position and way. So the first thing I’ve checked was the VORs in the area and found that the easiest to use was the Dogwood VOR. It is not completely aligned with the airport but should give me a sense If I’m going away from the general direction of the airport.

The direct route is on radial 238 and the airport on 235. So I’m choosing to set the navigation to 235.

But I still have to prepare the flight by looking for waypoints on the ground.

Finding waypoints

Looking at the sectional, there are a few points that I can pick and I took the one that would be the closest and I think obvious on the ground.

I ended up selecting 2 points marked 2 and 3 on the map. The first point on the map is for the TOC (top of climb). This is a calculated point so not much choice here.

The second is the curve at the end of the straight line for the road. This pattern for the road should be easy to pick.

The third point is for the road crossing at 90  degrees. I should be able to maintain my direction by looking at the road parallel to the flight path. When approaching the third point, I should be able to look on the left side for the river and lakes.

Having identified all the elements of the flight, I can start writing the flight plan.

Writing the flight plan

It starts of course by checking the weather. I’m going to the DUAT web site to get all the data and end up with the following information. Wind is expected to be for 3500 feet: 242 @15. We are supposed to fly 62 so this means that I should expect to face the wind. We will be slowed down on our way there but maintaining the direction should not be too difficult. The 15 knots of wind are a little stronger than expected but should be just fine.

It is now time to start preparing the actual flight plan.

Here it is! I’m done! I will just have to get the NOTAMs and TFRs before heading to the school for the flight. Let’s see what Michael will say about it! After the planning, I’m actually pretty excited to see how this trip will go.