VFR flight plans. Do you file them?

I quit flight following the day I was flying from Albuquerque to Gallup. It was clear and a million, I was at 14,500msl when I saw another airplane. It appeared to be a C-130 about 5 miles off at my 2 o'clock position. Since there was no relative movement in my windscreen, I kept an eye on it.

Suddenly I realized it was a camouflage Cessna Skymaster about a mile away and getting closer. I reduced power, initiated a climb, and watched it pass in front of me close enough for me to see the pilots face clearly. He never knew I was there.

Not a word from center. I know it is the pilots responsibility to see and avoid, which I did, but it would have been nice to be notified of other conflicting traffic.
 
I want your plane. Reducing power to climb is great.
 
If I remember correctly, all that filing a VFR flight plan does is provide a place to start looking for the plane when you don't show up on time; it is not normally available to ATC. Right?
 
I don't file many VFR flight plans, but almost always file IFR for cross country. I don't use FF in the air most of the time, but will monitor the local TRACON frequency for local flights. When pilots file VFR flight plans, I see many don't ever activate the flight plan and pilots don't understand that it is required in the US if you want someone to come looking for you if you end up being overdue. If you do file a VFR flight plan and don't activate it, it will time out after 2 hours and be removed from the FSS system. In this case if you go overdue, FSS won't generate an alert, so it may be some additional elapsed time before someone notices you are missing. Once you are reported as missing, your flight plan can be retrieved and help with SAR. With today's ADS-B technology, if your aircraft is equipped, that will give searching for you a head start.
 
I know I am late to this thread. I have mostly not been filing VFR flight plans but have started filing recently on specific flights. I fly VFR from Culpeper VA CJR to Dexter MI 2E8 on a semi regular basis, a few times year. I maintain flight over land and avoid Lake Erie with a dogleg over Toledo Suburban DUH. The problem I have is the transition from DUH to 2E8. The preferred method is fly direct and cross Bravo at or above 6500, then drop down for landing after passing ARB airspace. That requires ATC clearance and getting my intentions across to them has been problematic at times. My alternative is to fly around the west side of Bravo and remain clear. It adds about 10-15 minutes so not a big deal, but not preferred.

A flight briefer suggested that I file an IFR flight plan and let ATC know about it when I request VFR flight following. When this is done the flight plan is available to ATC for reference for the duration of your flight. You can put in all the details of your flight plan for ATC to use as you are shifted from controller to controller. I have done this a couple of times and it worked pretty well. This technique does not work with a VFR flight plan because it is purged from the system as soon as you open the flight plan. IFR flight plans remain in the system until your flight is completed. I am not an IFR pilot so I fly the flight plan VFR and let ATC know it exeist for their reference.

This works for me so I am passing it along. Hope this helps.
 
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William Pete Hodges said:
A flight briefer suggested that I file an IFR flight plan and let ATC know about it when I request VFR flight following,
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That does work. I used to fly a lot between Frederick MD and Westerly RI - IFR they would route you west of Philly and NY and often add much time to the route. VFR with flight following they would offer up over LaGuardia, NYC at 5K and up the west coast of LI. If you can get over the constant looking for a golf course just in case (and it's surprising how many there are in the NYC area) it's a great routes that saves 20 minutes from IFR routing.
 
Ghery said:
Our club requires that we fill out and file a flight plan if we are flying more than 50 nm from KOLM. Nothing said about flight following as a substitute.
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Interesting. The school/club I trained with was the opposite - they always required flight following, never filing a plan. The impression I got was that they really wanted students comfortable with talking to ATC.
 
William Pete Hodges said:
A flight briefer suggested that I file an IFR flight plan and let ATC know about it when I request VFR flight following. When this is done the flight plan is available to ATC for reference for the duration of your flight. You can put in all the details of your flight plan for ATC to use as you are shifted from controller to controller. I have done this a couple of times and it worked pretty well. This technique does not work with a VFR flight plan because it is purged from the system as soon as you open the flight plan. IFR flight plans remain in the system until your flight is completed. I am not an IFR pilot so I fly the flight plan VFR and let ATC know it exeist for their reference.

This works for me so I am passing it along. Hope this helps.
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Realize that is not legal for a non-instrument rated pilot to file an IFR flight plan (except for the DC SFRA).
 
StraightnLevel said:
Interesting. The school/club I trained with was the opposite - they always required flight following, never filing a plan. The impression I got was that they really wanted students comfortable with talking to ATC.
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It may be that the club rules were written a long time ago, before flight following was a "thing". I agree that flight following would be far more useful, for a number of reasons.
 
40YearDream said:
If I remember correctly, all that filing a VFR flight plan does is provide a place to start looking for the plane when you don't show up on time; it is not normally available to ATC. Right?
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VFR plans are not routed to ATC, but they can get ahold of them if they want.

The first place they look for you on a VFR plan is your stated destination, then all airports. Then they use you're last known location (your departure point if you never talked to ATC / FSS otherwise) and how much fuel said you have to figure out where you might be.
 
Never used to file anything, although would often get flight following. Now I'm in the SFRA, so I have to file to get out and then again to get back in. Somehow, I still don't file a flight plan for anything other than the SFRA though. I guess I just don't like the thought of having to screw around with amending or closing my flight plan in the event that I decide on an impromptu side-trip. I've yet to be turned down for flight following, and between ADSB, PLB, and my wife tracking me on Google Maps, I figure my location is going to be pretty easy to find!
 
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