I have my first solo x-country next weekend.  I'll be flying down to Wildwood (Cape May), routed over VAY to avoid the Philly class B.  I have, to date, 8.8 xcountry hours.  Well, I'm, just not the greatest at the whole VFR xcountry thing, so I'm glad there's GPS onboard (just in case I mean)

How'd everybody else's first solo xcountry go?

My solo cross countries were pretty fun!  There is nothing better than kicking your instructor out of the aircraft while you can enjoy the scenery!    On my first one, my instructor went out of town, to a place I was flying to.  Once I was in their vicinity, the tower there told me that my instructor said "dont forget to close off my flight plan."  Was kinda cool!  After exploring various towns on my own, and finally heading back, it was great and cozy seeing my home town appear right in my views, its awesome. 

Anyways, im sure you will have fun!  If you can flight plan properly, chances are, if you fly your calculated track from start to finished, you will be absolutely amazed how easy it is to navigate!  Take your time, clear your mind, remember the whole aircraft is yours for the trip and your in charge!

Hands down, my solo cross country was the best moment of my flight training!  (well, first solo aside  )

Seriously, it was a wonderful experience.  Between tackling controlled and uncontrolled airports I flew up into northern Ontario and got to see some fantastic lakes and hundreds of thousands of miles of forested lands - just gorgeous!  I'd hate to think where I would have landed had my engine conked, but it sure looked pretty XD.  It was nice to get to really work with the FSS along the route and get into position report habits, opening/closing flight plans, checking weather, yadda yadda.

EXCELLENT practice for working on pilotage skills!  At that point I hadn't been taught how to use any radio aids yet, so the whole thing was entirely flown based on chart skills.  I'm the opposite - I LOVE flying by chart and dead reckoning and hate using a GPS (which wasn't installed in the 150 I was flying anyway XD), so I had a ball.  Mind you, on the last leg back I ran into horrible turbulence and stabbed myself good in the thigh with my mechanical pencil as I was marking my time and revised ETA over a checkpoint - suffice to say, no more mechanical pencils in the cockpit for a while  .

It felt great to finally get a good long trip under my belt alone, without my instructor along.  Your confidence really climbs after you tackle all of the planning, radio work, navigation, traffic sighting, spacing, etc without that extra person in the right hand seat to turn to if you're uncertain or have a question - now you're solving everything that crops up all by yourself based on your training and study up to that point, and that just feels good .

And if the weather is nice and you have a scenic route picked out, you get a great view along the way!

Good luck, I hope it goes well!

Have faith beefhole, have faith!  Fly the track and make it back! 

You know that inless your chart is wgs-84 then it could be as much as half a mile out of sync with a gps position.

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Don't get what you mean there. But if a chart hasn't been gps confirmed then everything on it could be half a mile out. But as it's difficult to get a non wgs-84 chart these days I don't think you need worry.

Good luck Brendon, in a few years I'll be doing the same thing...

Ben 8)

Thanks Rotty, I've been told I may use VORs (not like they'd know anyway ).  I've been to Wildwood before, but only a quick touch and go.  I doubt I'll have time to get out this time around either, the 172s at Wings are generally booked solid.

I have more x-country time under my belt than your average student before they go solo x-country, so I expect it to go smoothly