Flight following while practicing steep turns and stalls?

Robert Ryan

Robert Ryan

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Robert R
I fly outside Class B and was wondering if it’s reasonable to request flight following. In case you’re wondering it’s northwest of the SFO bravo over West Marin. More westerly is over the ocean and more easterly is very busy, northerly is busy with regional and training traffic into KSTS.
 
Is that different than flight following?
I’m still at that stage where I need to practice radio calls with ATC like five times and I’m still nervous about talking to them. Would that go like:
“ Oakland center skyhawk 89xyz 3000 feet over west Marin request traffic advisories while practicing turns”

And then do you need to cancel advisories when done?
 
Robert Ryan said:
Is that different than flight following?
I’m still at that stage where I need to practice radio calls with ATC like five times and I’m still nervous about talking to them. Would that go like:
“ Oakland center skyhawk 89xyz 3000 feet over west Marin request traffic advisories while practicing turns”

And then do you need to cancel advisories when done?
Click to expand...
1. Not really. They’re going to point out traffic workload permitting. It’s the same thing as flight following except you probably won’t be handed off to another controller unless you get outside his airspace
2. Yes. They are going to give you a squawk so you’ll have to cancel advisories when you’re done.
 
"Oakland center skyhawk 89xyz over west Marin request local traffic advisories, will be maneuvering in this area between 3 and 4 thousand feet."
"Skyhawk 89xyz squawk 4376"
"4376 Skyhawk 89xyz"

Then do your practice When your done:

"Oakland center skyhawk 89xyz headed back to xxxX Airport, please cancel traffic advisories"
""Skyhawk 89xyz, Freq change approved squawk VFR"
 
Do it, great practice, when you are done, tell them so, instead of cancelling, just tell them where you are going next and ask if you can keep the code and continue flight following. It's good to talk to them, and generally, no guaranty, but they can help keep you out of trouble with airspaces. If you are landing, tell them when you have the airport in sight, they'll cancel you, tell you to keep the code or squawk vfr, and let you go to the tower or advisory. Just keep an ear out for when they call you with alerts. Great practice for your instrument ticket.
 
G-force said:
"Oakland center skyhawk 89xyz over west Marin request local traffic advisories, will be maneuvering in this area between 3 and 4 thousand feet."
"Skyhawk 89xyz squawk 4376"
"4376 Skyhawk 89xyz
Click to expand...

This is perfect, thanks!
 
We always told them we'd be doing maneuvers in the practice area and would appreciate an extra set of eyes looking out for us. They were always happy to help.
 
Let us know how it went. You’ll get the radio calls down easy eventually if you keep getting flight following.
 
Flight Following is not a tracking A to B flight plan kinda thing. They just want to know what to expect from you and it is perfectly OK to tell them in plain ol English (but keep from rambling your life story).
 
Maybe another variant if center is busy and a few more of the standard things you might hear:

You: "Oakland center skyhawk 89xyz request"
{wait for them to respond, might take a while..like 10-50 seconds seems forever}
CTR: "Skyhawk 89xyz Oakland center go ahead"
You: " "Skyhawk 89xyz nnnnft (level or climbing) X miles NW of Kxxx request flight following airwork between 3000 and 4000 feet".
{probably a slight delay}
CTR: "Skyhawk 89xyz Oakland center squawk 4376 maintain VFR"
You: "squawk 4376 maintain VFR Skyhawk 89xyz"
{probably 10-60 seconds later}
CTR: "Skyhawk 89xyz Oakland center radar contact X miles NW of Kxxx, Kyyy altimer 2995"
You: "2995 Skyhawk 89xyz"

...when you are done and if you don't want FF back to your airport...

You: "Oakland center skyhawk 89xyz airwork finished, heading home request frequency change"
CTR: "Skyhawk 89xyz Oakland center [final traffic callouts] frequency change approved, squawk 1200 have a good day"
[final traffic call outs] ...they may give you a final set of traffic call outs here.
You: "frequency change approved, squawk 1200 skyhawk 89xyz"
 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Mostly helpful above... For us rusty pilots.
 
Also "requesting block altitude between X000 and X000" can let them know you need to change altitudes if you are doing stalls and stuff like falling leaf maneuvers.
 
Robert Ryan said:
I fly outside Class B and was wondering if it’s reasonable to request flight following. In case you’re wondering it’s northwest of the SFO bravo over West Marin. More westerly is over the ocean and more easterly is very busy, northerly is busy with regional and training traffic into KSTS.
Click to expand...

Not only is it reasonable, it is highly recommended and a wise thing to do.
 
I was in my buddy’s plane on an IFR flight plane from Chicago to the south. We performed his ADS-B rebate test flight maneuvers while IFR in VMC. ATC said... you want to do what? They weren’t familiar with the rebate process or testing ADS-B. But they said sure and authorized us for 4 opposing circles with altitude discretion below 10,000.
 
I went up briefly today but Oakland Center was very busy and the weather was deteriorating so didn’t make the request. Makes sense since it’s a busy aviation weekend.

Today was the first day I checked out the airplane without my instructor. At times I was more nervous than my first solo. On short final at 200’ I got a warning over the radio regarding birds on the runway. I didn’t see any and had no spare brain capacity to deal with birds and I decided they’d need to get out the way.
 
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