Round-robin IFR flight plans

[nddons]

I had an interesting IFR training day last Saturday. It was a beautiful day - warm, sunny, and clear. Not that I would notice in that I was under the hood.

I filed an IFR flight plan from KUES to 3CK in Illinois, and flew the GPS RWY 26 into Lake in the Hills. No problem, Milwaukee and Chicago approach controllers were cool. Closed the flight plan, visited with my brother and nephews for 20 minutes and then continued the training flight with my CFII.

I filed my next flight plan from 3CK direct KRFD direct KMSN direct KUES with DUAT. Since 3CK is uncontrolled, we were going to open our flight plan and get our clearance in the air. Heading due west to Rockford, the Chicago approach controller said "you're almost out of my airspace; contact Rockford approach on 121.0."

Fine. So I called RFD and told approach that Chicago directed us to call RFD, and she said "Oh great. Standby." After a while, she came back and said "N1234A, what are your intentions?" We said that we wanted to activate our IFR flight plan to KUES via KRFD and KMSN, and she said "Can't you do this under visual?" What? She then said "These round-robin flight plans don't work; they don't stay in our system and are very hard to work with." So, we simply requested the GPS Y RWY 25 approach, and assured her we would leave her precious airspace after the approach. I could almost hear a "harumph" on her side of the mike, as she grudgingly gave us vectors to the approach.

Is this an unusual type of flight plan, or just a case of a bad attitude from the contoller? My frustrated CFII just said "some people don't want to do their jobs." It was a beautiful day, and everybody and their brother was out flying. But still ...

Just last week we flew a smaller round-robin flight plan in 1.5 hours of actual, nasty IMC (constant rain, but +3 degrees C), and the Milwaukee controllers were totally cool with doing approaches at three different airports - KMKE, Racine, & Waukesha.

How would you file such a flight plan for a training flight? Round robin, or separate flight plans for each leg?

 

[BillTIZ]

It Depends.. And it's not about "controllers doing their job" it is about work load.
If you are staying with the same area and controllers on a round robin flight plan, it can work, put in remarks the intermediate point that you are requesting an approach.

But if you leave center, go over to approach control and want to come back out through center to another airport. The computers have a problem. If you file xxx to yyy to zzz and plan an approach at yyy, the computers don't know that, they think you are "overflying yyy between xxx and zzz", to get the computer to "push" the flight plan to yyy approach control, they need to show it as a termination point. All dependent on the altitude you are at and the altitudes owned by approach control.

So, file each leg as seperate plans, be close to your planned arrival and proposed departure time, don't be 30 min early or an hour late. Normally flight plans are not "in the system" until 30 min prior to the P time, and may only be held for an hour, maybe two.

Let them know when you request the approach your intentions, "I should have a proposed flight plan from yyy to zzz in the system, I'd like to pick that up after this approach." It may not always work, especially if they have someone sitting on the ground waiting for you to complete the approach so they can leave on their IFR clearance. One in, one out.

With a round robin plan, it may get "truncated" and terminated at the intermediate approach location. That means the rest of the plan is "gone". It is not the radar controllers responsibility to put your plan back into the computer, he may send you off to talk to FSS to file a new flight plan and maintain "VFR" while doing so. His job is to talk to and seperate aircraft and keep the traffic moving, not put flight plans into a computer. Remeber how many boxes there are on that flight plan form.

I've been on both sides of the scope.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Yeah, the difference is that on the previous flight you were with MKE approach the whole time, whereas this time you were with Rockford, Madison, and MKE. In the first case, one flight plan should be OK. In this case, I'd say 3 plans would probably have been better.

 

[sba55]

These sort of "non-standard" IFR flight plans are handled different depending on facility.

In NorCal, for example, I almost never filed flight plans for IFR training. It was as simple as calling up approach and telling them that we'd like a code and approaches at airports 1,2,3. Some facilities aren't quite as accommodating....

I loved doing the IFR here. Most of the time, you switch over to tower, do the missed, go back to approach, and are greeted with a "welcome back how're things going"

-Felix

 

[SCCutler]

These sort of "non-standard" IFR flight plans are handled different depending on facility.

In NorCal, for example, I almost never filed flight plans for IFR training. It was as simple as calling up approach and telling them that we'd like a code and approaches at airports 1,2,3. Some facilities aren't quite as accommodating....

I loved doing the IFR here. Most of the time, you switch over to tower, do the missed, go back to approach, and are greeted with a "welcome back how're things going"

-Felix

Very much like that around here with Regional Approach (DFW) as well; unless workload is extreme, they just give you a squawk and you're on your way.

 

[Ted]

When I was doing IFR training, if we were just going up and practicing approaches in VFR conditions we'd tend to just go up VFR and request our practice approaches from center or whatever facility was appropriate. I never did a "round robin" flight plan. If we were going to go fly in actual IMC, we'd file a flight plan, go wherever, and request any changes en route.

It sounds to me like a controller who had more workload than she wanted to deal with. If it was a beautiful day out, I can understand. It seems like everyone goes out and practices IFR approaches on beautiful days, but when the clouds are looming they stay on the ground.

 

[dmccormack]

These sort of "non-standard" IFR flight plans are handled different depending on facility.

In NorCal, for example, I almost never filed flight plans for IFR training. It was as simple as calling up approach and telling them that we'd like a code and approaches at airports 1,2,3. Some facilities aren't quite as accommodating....

I loved doing the IFR here. Most of the time, you switch over to tower, do the missed, go back to approach, and are greeted with a "welcome back how're things going"

-Felix

Exactly -- same here with Clarksburg approach. Although PIT's gotten better, CKB is consistently helpful and accomodating.

 

[ScottM]

KRFD does not like round robin flight plans and always asks pilot to just file the individual FPs. They have been like that for years. Personally I find it easier to do single flight plans as it confuses the controllers less when dealing with multiple facilities. If you do the RR FPs I get the feeling that the controller has to create local FPs for what you are doing and it eats up their time. KRFD ATC is always very nice and helpful. The attitude you got was more directed at Chi-APP for their handing work off to KRFD yet again.

 

[poadeleted20]

My experience is that if you're doing a "round-robin" flight plan for training (approaches at each corner), it's essential that you note that in the Remarks section (e.g., file ABC-DEF-GHI-ABC and put "Practice approaches at DEF and GHI" in the Remarks). Otherwise, things often get, as Bill said, "truncated." But even then, they still sometimes get messed up, especially if you cross Center or even TRACON boundaries. OTOH, I have virtually 100% successful results when I file separate flight plans for each leg, and inform on initial contact the agency controlling the destination of the leg that upon completion of the approach, we'll be picking up the next leg flight plan.

 

[bobmrg]

AIM 6-2-7 deals with VFR, but it does recommend individual flight plans. When I was a newbie CFII I fell into the round-robin/low approach trap, and it worked very well in the immediate Seattle area. After I matured a bit, I realized that my students were not getting any practice at landing at distant/unfamiliar airports and picking up clearances by whatever means was available at that airport.

A CFII should teach more than how to shoot approaches.

Bob Gardner

 

[dmccormack]

AIM 6-2-7 deals with VFR, but it does recommend individual flight plans. When I was a newbie CFII I fell into the round-robin/low approach trap, and it worked very well in the immediate Seattle area. After I matured a bit, I realized that my students were not getting any practice at landing at distant/unfamiliar airports and picking up clearances by whatever means was available at that airport.

A CFII should teach more than how to shoot approaches.

Bob Gardner

Excellent point!

In my IFR training, nearly every approach ended in a landing, and we mixed it up to several different airports.

The closest NBD approach took 30 minutes of VOR straight-line flight to reach, but the experience was far more realistic -- in the soup, an unfamiliar approach, to a new airport added up to a great learning experience.

Strongly recommended.

 

[Ted]

In my IFR training, nearly every approach ended in a landing, and we mixed it up to several different airports.

The closest NBD approach took 30 minutes of VOR straight-line flight to reach, but the expereince was far more realistic -- in the soup, an unfamiliar approach, to a new airport added up to a great learning experience.

Strongly recommended.

I had a number of training flights that were similar. It's especially good to at least have a couple times practicing the various methods so you're comfortable with them. Since I fly out of a towered airport, it was especially important for me to learn the various ways to pick up clearances from uncontrolled fields.

Very good point, Bob.

 

[BillTIZ]

I did the practice in VMC with Joshua Approach for approaches into PMD, then an IFR pickup from PMD into VNY trick.

In my error I had planned a missed approach and an immediate pick up of my next IFR from VNY to POC. Nothing doing, I alerted approach as I started down the ILS and they told me to expect a full stop at the bottom or cancel now go VFR.

So it was a full stop at VNY, taxi back, #5 in sequence for an IFR departure clearance behind some big corporate jets. There we are sitting with engines running in a Seneca II, nice way to spend $100 waiting for your turn.

The SID out of VNY holds you down below the ILS into Burbank (?) and then airways to POC for the ILS and a nice lunch.

 

[nddons]

AIM 6-2-7 deals with VFR, but it does recommend individual flight plans. When I was a newbie CFII I fell into the round-robin/low approach trap, and it worked very well in the immediate Seattle area. After I matured a bit, I realized that my students were not getting any practice at landing at distant/unfamiliar airports and picking up clearances by whatever means was available at that airport.

A CFII should teach more than how to shoot approaches.

Bob Gardner

And that's the phase that I'm in, Bob. We've moved on from just shooting approaches to the XC portion of my training, and so this flight was my first using multiple approach controllers, and being more active in the IFR system itself.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[ScottM]

And that's the phase that I'm in, Bob. We've moved on from just shooting approaches to the XC portion of my training, and so this flight was my first using multiple approach controllers, and being more active in the IFR system itself.

Thanks for the advice.

Jsut an FYI Stan. Going from MKE-APP to RFD-APP and even GB-APP is real easy. Going from any of them to Chi-App is an adventure.