Picking Up Flight Following - What is easy for you?

tuwood said:
I have a more general newbie FF question. When I get a VFR clearance out of my class C airport (KLNK) and they give me a squawk and hand me off to departure/approach after takeoff do I officially have "flight following" at that time? In other words if I'm flying XC will I continue to be handed off to center until I intentionally cancel my FF and squawk VFR?
So far all of my training flights have been under ATC and Approach/Departure control so I'm curious.
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This wandered far afield of your original question but some folks covered it. At LNK they're giving you required Class Charlie airspace services. The service is handled by Omaha Approach not the Center.

If you wander far enough away, and they know you're wandering far away up front, you'll notice they give you a squawk that starts with a different set of digits during your clearance delivery, and you'll hear, "Contact Center, xxx.xx" when you head out of Omaha's airspace.

If they don't know you're wandering away, you'll get "You're leaving my airspace, radar service terminated, squawk 1200" and if they aren't too busy or if you ask, "for further flight following contact Center xxx.xx" and they'll assign you a new squawk.

They're really friendly there and numerous times when we would leave the Charlie we'd tell them we were planning on coming back shortly they'd say, "let me get you a new squawk, standby" and they'd go get a regular squawk code for flight following and then hand you off to center or just coordinate with whoever needed to keep you on a code, so when you came back they'd already know who you were.

Other Charlie airspace has similar but different weirdnesses. COS is also similar to LNK in that the overlying and surrounding airspace is actually controlled by Denver Approach, not Denver Center, even all the way down to PUB. Going from APA to PUB you'll talk to APA Tower, Denver Approach, Colorado Springs Approach, and then Denver Approach again, down low anyway.

So it changes a little bit between Charlie facilities as to who's controlling things, but they'll happily set you up on only a "local squawk" if you're staying in their area, or a regular one that can be handed off to a Center if you want FF and you're headed somewhere far away.

It's not truly "flight following" inside the Charlie, technically. It's a required service for you to be in there. But if you leave the Charlie, they can set it up for you that you'll continue with flight following with the next chunk of airspace.

Remember also going the other direction that sometimes they can forget about you and speak up with a question if it looks like you're going into someone else's airspace, like coming back into the Charlie and they haven't handed you off yet.

Hope that helps.
 
denverpilot said:
This wandered far afield of your original question but some folks covered it. At LNK they're giving you required Class Charlie airspace services. The service is handled by Omaha Approach not the Center.

If you wander far enough away, and they know you're wandering far away up front, you'll notice they give you a squawk that starts with a different set of digits during your clearance delivery, and you'll hear, "Contact Center, xxx.xx" when you head out of Omaha's airspace.

If they don't know you're wandering away, you'll get "You're leaving my airspace, radar service terminated, squawk 1200" and if they aren't too busy or if you ask, "for further flight following contact Center xxx.xx" and they'll assign you a new squawk.

They're really friendly there and numerous times when we would leave the Charlie we'd tell them we were planning on coming back shortly they'd say, "let me get you a new squawk, standby" and they'd go get a regular squawk code for flight following and then hand you off to center or just coordinate with whoever needed to keep you on a code, so when you came back they'd already know who you were.

Other Charlie airspace has similar but different weirdnesses. COS is also similar to LNK in that the overlying and surrounding airspace is actually controlled by Denver Approach, not Denver Center, even all the way down to PUB. Going from APA to PUB you'll talk to APA Tower, Denver Approach, Colorado Springs Approach, and then Denver Approach again, down low anyway.

So it changes a little bit between Charlie facilities as to who's controlling things, but they'll happily set you up on only a "local squawk" if you're staying in their area, or a regular one that can be handed off to a Center if you want FF and you're headed somewhere far away.

It's not truly "flight following" inside the Charlie, technically. It's a required service for you to be in there. But if you leave the Charlie, they can set it up for you that you'll continue with flight following with the next chunk of airspace.

Remember also going the other direction that sometimes they can forget about you and speak up with a question if it looks like you're going into someone else's airspace, like coming back into the Charlie and they haven't handed you off yet.

Hope that helps.
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I have no doubt you have great advice and information in your posts.

I just can't bring myself to read them. Just too damn long. I wonder how many actually do read them??
 
Kritchlow said:
I have no doubt you have great advice and information in your posts.

I just can't bring myself to read them. Just too damn long. I wonder how many actually do read them??
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Don't know. Don't care. If the written word isn't why someone is on a forum, they're probably in the wrong place. Spoken word is handled via podcasts and telephones.

But the country has gone ADD and stupid about reading in general, too.

Best example ever... The website called "Reddit" (as in "read it") coined the phrase "TL;DR" which stands for "Too Long, Didn't... READ". But I will say, Reddit went downhill and turned into a chat forum of one-liners, and Digg style voting, with very little READING material, a very long time ago.

My schooling included a massive amount of required reading, and writing, especially in grade school since I was at a school that pushed the "three Rs" and I still have poetry and what-not memorized cold from that place. But it continued into later "education".

The "Huked On Foniks" public school crowd has trouble with it, I've noticed. But they probably don't have Frost or Shakespeare memorized as part of a mandatory curriculum, either.

It's just what I do. Someone doesn't want to read it, the scroll wheel is their ticket to ride the ADD train that needs a new one-liner every 20 seconds. I honestly don't mind.

In the case of this particular response, I'm also trying to ease the reader into ideas via a conversational style flow, just like a real conversation, which doesn't always lend well to written words if reading speed is slow. But you do have to read it as a conversation, and not a document. Different writing style.

Forums are conversations with train of thought. I save the documentary style for boring technical documents and requirements. A statement, the supporting documentation point by point and a closing re-iterating the statement in "five-paragraph" essay style, is not what most folks are looking for in a conversation.

You have to "listen to the words" to get Frost, or Shakespere, or Whitman, or Poe, or Kerouac, Twain, or...

(Well, nobody really gets Poe... Ha. Scratch that one! Crazy bastard! Ha!)

I read recently that "On The Road" by Kerouac is written on a *roll* of paper. Probably in a benzadine fury (debate surrounds that) of drug induced writing. If you want a tougher read than me, it's definitely that. But it's also an American classic. Well worth the read.

Heck, if folks could actually read nowadays, and they could get through the first trip west in Kerouac's novel, they might complain a whole lot less about how bad they think they have things in modern America. The hitchhiking scenes, on through to the living in a shack with a pregnant Mexican girl and working in a California field -- they might find their lot in life isn't quite as bad as they think it is in cushy modern America.

But they're busy "reading" the news ticker on CNN and listening to endless political drivel and sound bites.

It's like instrument flying I think. If you don't exercise the ability to read a few pages of words and only live by sound bites and slogans -- well, you've seen our latest Presidential election and how the professional social engineers present it that way, on a mental midget platter, to the perennially distracted masses.
 
denverpilot said:
Don't know. Don't care. If the written word isn't why someone is on a forum, they're probably in the wrong place. Spoken word is handled via podcasts and telephones.

But the country has gone ADD and stupid about reading in general, too.

Best example ever... The website called "Reddit" (as in "read it") coined the phrase "TL;DR" which stands for "Too Long, Didn't... READ". But I will say, Reddit went downhill and turned into a chat forum of one-liners, and Digg style voting, with very little READING material, a very long time ago.

My schooling included a massive amount of required reading, and writing, especially in grade school since I was at a school that pushed the "three Rs" and I still have poetry and what-not memorized cold from that place. But it continued into later "education".

The "Huked On Foniks" public school crowd has trouble with it, I've noticed. But they probably don't have Frost or Shakespeare memorized as part of a mandatory curriculum, either.

It's just what I do. Someone doesn't want to read it, the scroll wheel is their ticket to ride the ADD train that needs a new one-liner every 20 seconds. I honestly don't mind.

In the case of this particular response, I'm also trying to ease the reader into ideas via a conversational style flow, just like a real conversation, which doesn't always lend well to written words if reading speed is slow. But you do have to read it as a conversation, and not a document. Different writing style.

Forums are conversations with train of thought. I save the documentary style for boring technical documents and requirements. A statement, the supporting documentation point by point and a closing re-iterating the statement in "five-paragraph" essay style, is not what most folks are looking for in a conversation.

You have to "listen to the words" to get Frost, or Shakespere, or Whitman, or Poe, or Kerouac, Twain, or...

(Well, nobody really gets Poe... Ha. Scratch that one! Crazy bastard! Ha!)

I read recently that "On The Road" by Kerouac is written on a *roll* of paper. Probably in a benzadine fury (debate surrounds that) of drug induced writing. If you want a tougher read than me, it's definitely that. But it's also an American classic. Well worth the read.

Heck, if folks could actually read nowadays, and they could get through the first trip west in Kerouac's novel, they might complain a whole lot less about how bad they think they have things in modern America. The hitchhiking scenes, on through to the living in a shack with a pregnant Mexican girl and working in a California field -- they might find their lot in life isn't quite as bad as they think it is in cushy modern America.

But they're busy "reading" the news ticker on CNN and listening to endless political drivel and sound bites.

It's like instrument flying I think. If you don't exercise the ability to read a few pages of words and only live by sound bites and slogans -- well, you've seen our latest Presidential election and how the professional social engineers present it that way, on a mental midget platter, to the perennially distracted masses.
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Didn't read that one either....
 
Kritchlow said:
I have no doubt you have great advice and information in your posts.

I just can't bring myself to read them. Just too damn long. I wonder how many actually do read them??
Click to expand...

I will say I do read them. Nate usually has good things to say well written. But I did grow up reading the encyclopedia. So I may be different...

John
 
Kritchlow said:
Didn't read that one either....
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jsstevens said:
I will say I do read them. Nate usually has good things to say well written. But I did grow up reading the encyclopedia. So I may be different...
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Different strokes.

What I find entertaining is the person who's usually upset at long posts is also the person making the most fuss about them existing in extemporaneous extra posts.

I don't feel compelled to POST to tell someone I didn't read their post. That's a bit odd, to me.

I just scroll on by. Me telling someone I didn't read something on a discussion forum just makes no sense to me at all.

Nobody cares if @Krichlow didn't read a post.

Or me.

I try to imagine some of the strange things that happen on discussion forums as if they were in person...

Lincoln finishes the Gettysburg Address and someone walks up to him, "Hey Abe! I didn't listen to that, ok?!" "Um, okay."

(And I specifically use the Gettysburg example because historians and newspapers of the time were aghast at how short it was. Some were even insulted the President didn't speak for at least two hours! In the rain! How rude this President is that he didn't speak that long at such a momentous occasion! Maybe his speech really should have been three hours long! Can you IMAGINE that he was done and left so QUICKLY!? -- How many Americans today have even read it?) ;)
 
Kritchlow said:
I have no doubt you have great advice and information in your posts.

I just can't bring myself to read them. Just too damn long. I wonder how many actually do read them??
Click to expand...

Well there's that ignore feature you know. :rolleyes: I read Nate's posts also.
 
denverpilot said:
Different strokes.

What I find entertaining is the person who's usually upset at long posts is also the person making the most fuss about them existing in extemporaneous extra posts.

I don't feel compelled to POST to tell someone I didn't read their post. That's a bit odd, to me.

I just scroll on by. Me telling someone I didn't read something on a discussion forum just makes no sense to me at all.

Nobody cares if @Krichlow didn't read a post.

Or me.

I try to imagine some of the strange things that happen on discussion forums as if they were in person...

Lincoln finishes the Gettysburg Address and someone walks up to him, "Hey Abe! I didn't listen to that, ok?!" "Um, okay."

(And I specifically use the Gettysburg example because historians and newspapers of the time were aghast at how short it was. Some were even insulted the President didn't speak for at least two hours! In the rain! How rude this President is that he didn't speak that long at such a momentous occasion! Maybe his speech really should have been three hours long! Can you IMAGINE that he was done and left so QUICKLY!? -- How many Americans today have even read it?) ;)
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I really appreciate the well thought out and thorough posts. I'm not a very good writer, but I tend to do the same thing when I'm talking to people. I like to educate and teach people not only how I feel about a topic at hand, but also what lead me to feel the way I do. Sometimes it annoys others though, especially when they just want to know where the bathroom is. o_O
 
EdFred said:
I've found it's all how you ask. I've had someone in front of me ask for FF, and they were horrible on the radio. They were denied. I call up not 30 seconds later with a clear concise request, and sounded like I knew what I was doing and was given FF.
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You and I have heard the exact same thing. Perhaps it shouldn't matter.But it does.
 
midlifeflyer said:
You and I have heard the exact same thing. Perhaps it shouldn't matter.But it does.
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It's very common trying to enter busy airspace as well. "Dulles Approach Navion 5327K 25N 1500 with uniform parking Hawthorne" said clearly and swiftly usually got you a class B clearance when other fumbled approaches were told to maintain clear. They figure if you can handle the initial callup, you can handle yourself inside.
 
midlifeflyer said:
You and I have heard the exact same thing. Perhaps it shouldn't matter.But it does.
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It's a workload thing. You, Ron, and I won't add much or any workload for the controller. Someone who has to issue a treatise of their intentions, or has the 7 minute initial call up of "Yeah, Um, ah, Jackso, uh, Orlando approach, we're ah, um, twentysev-, um twenetysix north, er, southwe- I mean east at, uh..." is going to cause a workload issue. And isn't FF based on available workload? ;)
 
EdFred said:
The controllers around here want only the tail number/type on initial call up. It think that's probably what most controller want as well based on previous comment from controllers on this board. They may not be ready to copy everyting down if you vomit everything on initial call up, and then you have to say it all again


Brevity. Learn it love it.
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Yep, nothing wrong with just ID on initial call up. I'd say throwing in "request flight following" at the end will work as well.

The brevity part works well for a few reasons. First, if you rattle of a whole slew of stuff while the controller is on the landline, they may or may not have copied any of the information. If you give just your tail number, most likely they're writing it down, while talking on the landline and glancing at their strip board to make sure you're not an IFR looking to pick up your clearance. Once they find out you're not on their board, they're probably typing your ID into the ARTS / STARs while simultaneously transmitting "Cessna 12345, XYZ approach, go ahead."

Second reason for brevity is avoiding talking over another aircraft that's on another freq. Could be another VHF or if it's a busy military facility, they've got multiple UHF freqs up with aircraft transmitting. Some VFR wanting flight following with a long transmission will only get drown out in the background. It might also block the transmission of an IFR aircraft that has priority, therefore ticking off the controller.

Finally, I don't know how many times I've heard guys requesting FF with a weak transmitter or at low altitude and ATC can't even hear them. They're wasting their time transmitting a novel when the only people that can hear them are a few planes in their immediate vicinity.
 
I'm flying this morning, I'll have to remember to ask the controller.
 
"Atlanta, Cherokee N12345, VFR"
"N345, go ahead"
"N345, six miles northwest of KLZU at 4500, request Flight Following to KAPT"
"Maintain 4500, squawk 2345"

...has always been my experience thus far.
 
OK, the answer is that the ICAO equipment codes are translated to the strip to the old style /A, /G whatever letter. The former is available for call up by the controller unless some controller sets the equipment code on his end to something which obliterates both the translated and the store ICAO code.
 
ettsn said:
"Atlanta, Cherokee N12345, VFR"
"N345, go ahead"
"N345, six miles northwest of KLZU at 4500, request Flight Following to KAPT"
"Maintain 4500, squawk 2345"

...has always been my experience thus far.
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Look out for "meat bombs." ;)
 
There is an APP for Android Phones that helps in picking up a frequency and form a sentence for the Initial contact, take a look:
[FONT=Roboto, UILanguageFont, Arial, sans-serif]https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.monroemobile.contactatc[/FONT]

This app is for VFR Private Pilots, it helps you locate an appropriate Air Traffic Control Facility and Frequency. It will also display the information you need to provide to ATC for the initial contact. It uses your phone's GPS to provide proper location information for Air Traffic Controllers to pin point you on their Radar.
[FONT=Roboto, UILanguageFont, Arial, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
 
The controller doesn't need "proper location information" to "pin point" you on radar. Unless using position correlation, which most likely you won't be doing, they'll get your position when you sqk up. General position is good just so they know where to look for your sqk, but it's not that important.
 
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