Cross-Country Trip Resource Guide

Details

Published: 05 June 2025

The club has created a guide to help members who plan to take overnight trips or cross-country trips outside of the North Texas area.

This guide contains information on how to handle problems including maintenance or unexpected delays and how to plan ahead to protect planes from extreme weather. Please review this guide and know this material if you plan to fly more than 2 hours away from McKinney.

Cross-Country Resource Guide

Multiday Reservations

Details

Published: 05 June 2025

Texins Flying Club has a really nice set of planes that we love to see going out on interesting trips to new places. We encourage members to get checked out on our cross-country planes and take the planes out for overnight trips. The 172's are not considered cross-country planes and are not allowed to be scheduled for overnight trips as a general rule. These are our primary training aircraft and during the weekend we normally see these planes booked for multiple training flights.

When you are planning a significant overnight cross-country trip we understand that you need to prepare for that well ahead of time. Our scheduler is intentionally set up so that members cannot schedule flights more than 30 days ahead. We set this restriction so that all members who want to take planes on fun cross-country trips have an equitable chance to do so.

If you are interested in taking a plane for a multi-day trip or for a trip on a specific day more than 30 days out we ask that you email your request to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with a backup copy to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. These mailboxes are monitored by the officers and we will review and discuss your request. The officers may ask follow-up questions to ensure that the trip may be made safely and that the pilot is likely to be able to complete the trip on time. Once the officers have approved the request we can make the reservation for you so that you can be sure to have the plane for the requested duration. This policy helps everyone out by ensuring that members have equal chances to reserve planes for trips and that members don't have to be camped out on FlightCircle at midnight to hit the "reserve" button.

A few notes about our policies regarding multi-day reservations:

• Our planes generally cannot be taken internationally. Mexico is a hard "no". If you want to go to Canada, you can ask, but you're going to need to give a good presentation to show that you have complete understanding of the entire legal process. We'll probably still say "no" but you can always ask.
• You cannot take the 172's on multi-day trips without asking the officers first. If the trip is just a few days away and the planes are not busy, we might say "yes". But we encourage members to get checked out on our other planes and take those instead.
• We have a resource guide for how to handle problems on cross-country trips. Please read that guide to understand the shared responsibilities of the club and the pilot renting the plane.
• If the trip is more than 30 days out please do reach out with an email so that we can get you on the schedule before someone reserves the plane
• Members are responsible for the daily minimum usage charges. If you plan to take the plane on a very short multiday trip, please understand that you will likely have to pay the required daily minimum charges
• Members who are not IFR current and in general any member who is not proficient, needs to understand that you may not be able to return the plane on time and the officers will need to consider this likelihood when evaluating your request. Please be prepared to do some flying with a club instructor to become more proficient prior to taking on a significant cross-country trip.