VFR into controlled field.. Who closes flight plan?

Ah, c'mon, where's your sense of adventure? :)
 
I wish VFR flight plans and flight following had a way to interact. Now that the VFR flight plans are entirely in contractor land, they do not. If your N number automatically linked to the VFR flight plan when you pick up FF, it would fulfill several objectives:
-the controller would have the pertinent information available without a need for back and for communications
- ETA could be automatically updated based on the FF progress without a need for separate calls to FSS.
- if a plane on FF drops off the radar, contact phone, SOB, color, type of aircraft and route information from the flight plan is immediately available to SAR without anyone having to go looking for it.
 
At least when I was instructing, it was our school's sop for students to file a VFR flight plan for their X-countries.
I also read somewhere (can't remember if it was this thread) that students would land, taxi back, and take off while in their X-countries. We always had them get out of the plane, check weather, and finalize the planning.
 
I couldn't begin to even pretend what our SOP was for PPL students as exactly 0 of my students while at a flight school were seeking this license (certificate.)
 
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StinkBug said:
I'd like to know how many people have actually experienced this. I primarily fly in some of the busiest airspace in the US and I've had to wait to get FF initiated a couple times, but NEVER have I been cut off midway to my destination once flight following has been started. If I were dropped I'd grab the next sector and get it started again, but that's never been necessary. I've also never been denied flight following, at worst it's been "call back in 5 minutes".
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You must not fly between Philly and Boston very often. I have been dropped many times. Usually it is NY Approach who won't take the hand-off. Then you are on your own. I usually get the apologetic 'You can try the next guy on xxx.xx, but for now squawk VFR.' The next guy wouldn't take a handoff from ATC, so you know how that's gonna go. Around Philly I have been denied FF a number of times, either explicitly ('Unable') or implicitly (they won't even acknowledge the transmission).

There are some interesting differences in ATC around the country. For example - filing and receiving 'Direct Destination' in the Northeast is like finding a unicorn. Elsewhere it is routine.
 
BellyUpFish said:
Seriously? Do you put this much effort into finding points of contention in everything you do in life?



So, we can't call a PPL a PPL?
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Hey call it whatever you want. Just saying it's a certificate, and defined as such in Part 61. Your mileage may vary, especially on POA. :D
 
mscard88 said:
Hey call it whatever you want. Just saying it's a certificate, and defined as such in Part 61. Your mileage may vary, especially on POA. :D
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Oh no doubt.

If it were up to left to the POA aviation juggernauts, airplanes would be bound to the earth via weighty lines of nitpick.

Even the FAA seems to be flexible enough to allow the word license to be used on their very own website.

POA experts are more restrictive in casual conversation than the Feds.. That's impressive.
 
mscard88 said:
Alright hardhead, what's it say on your "license", in addition to Part 61?
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EdFred said:
Solely the S&R thing, no other reason - (DC and border crossings notwithstanding)
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And that's just a Hail Mary, if you're in a area with little to no services and somewhere where you would need SAR, best be having a SPOT, spidertrax and a 406 ELT.
 
James331 said:
And that's just a Hail Mary, if you're in a area with little to no services and somewhere where you would need SAR, best be having a SPOT, spidertrax and a 406 ELT.
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Seems as though the VFR flight plan bennies just went out the door...
 
James331 said:
And that's just a Hail Mary, if you're in a area with little to no services and somewhere where you would need SAR, best be having a SPOT, spidertrax and a 406 ELT.
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BellyUpFish said:
Seems as though the VFR flight plan bennies just went out the door...
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Every piece of emergency equipment you have available is good, of course.

In an incident 2 years ago, my brother filed a VFR flight plan and then ended up upside down on a *very* remote Alaska beach without
406 ELT, SPOT, spidertrax, DeLorme, ResQLink, etc. He did have an old 121.5 ELT aboard. He didn't tell me his itinerary but used my phone as a contact # on the flight plan. First flight service and then the air nat'l guard S&R center called me, confirmed my brother and passenger were missing and told me they would commence searching after the plane was overdue for a specific number of hours (I think it was 8). They launched a C130 into the area specified on my brother's planned route; the C130 located the 121.5 ELT very quickly; a guard Pavehawk helicopter was dispatched to the spot and my brother and passenger were picked up. They were overdue around 5pm; they were picked up about 2:30am. The system, including the VFR flight plan, worked well in this case.
 
James331 said:
And that's just a Hail Mary, if you're in a area with little to no services and somewhere where you would need SAR, best be having a SPOT, spidertrax and a 406 ELT.
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It's good to have those things, but it's not that unusual for all of them to fail, particularly if the emergency happens with little to no warning. 406 ELTs in particular only "ping" once per minute, and we've chased a few with only one. It's possible to burn one up in less than a minute or shear the antenna off in a LOT less. And of course they have to be registered and provided a GPS signal. Not all of them are.

Do them all. The VFR flight plan is an additional line of defense for when the gadgets fail.
 
License or certificate is indeed debatable... Rating is not.
 
edo2000 said:
They were overdue around 5pm; they were picked up about 2:30am. The system, including the VFR flight plan, worked well in this case.
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They should have obtained flight following and they would have received an immediate pick up.............:)
 
weilke said:
They should have obtained flight following and they would have received an immediate pick up.............:)
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On a "remote Alaska beach," I doubt it was available.

It's not immediate either. It would probably mean a smaller area of probability for the search without the ELT. But since an ELT went off, the difference would only be dispatch. It would still take hours.
 
weilke said:
They should have obtained flight following and they would have received an immediate pick up.............:)
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They were beachcombing and sightseeing, VFR low level, remote mountainous area, occasional beach landings. No radar coverage. I thought the pick up was very quick considering. My brother was surprised to see the chopper arrive in the dark of night. Dropped him and passenger at the hospital heliport in our little home town. All they had was scratches and bruises but the helo crew said it was procedure.
 
I should have added [*sarcasm*] formatting.
 
BellyUpFish said:
Seriously? Do you put this much effort into finding points of contention in everything you do in life?
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I looked in to see how it was possible for a thread about how to close a VFR flight plan could possibly go over 140 posts, even on POA. Now I understand.

Just a brief comment on the point of "just semantics." Sometimes it matters. Sometimes it doesn't. I can't get all bent out of shape over "certificate" v. "license." But you may have noticed that an awful lot of people have trouble with a simple PIC logging rule that says a pilot may log sole manipulator time as PIC toward certificates, ratings and currency if "rated" for the aircraft. Having been involved in those discussions (and heated arguments) for more than 20 years now, I am absolutely convinced at least 90% of the confusion and wrong answers are based on a failure to understand the technical FAA meaning of the word "rating."

Whether pilot, artist, physician, accountant, chef, or whatever, jargon means something and is very often an aid to understanding.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I looked in to see how it was possible for a thread about how to close a VFR flight plan could possibly go over 140 posts, even on POA. Now I understand.
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*EDITTED FOR POA CLARITY* :rolleyes:

How did this thread possibly go over 140 posts?

This image is how.

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midlifeflyer said:
Just a brief comment on the point of "just semantics." Sometimes it matters. Sometimes it doesn't.
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And this is clearly one time that it didn't matter, until it was chosen to be matter and made a point of contention for no other reason than to fulfill the above images prophecy.

Have you ever had a face to face conversation with someone who used the wrong word in the discussion, and it was fairly obvious you understood it was just a slip of the tongue and found no need to correct them?

We treat each other differently in person. We allow margins of error that don't exist on the Internet.

I'd suspect, I HOPE, that if most of us in this thread were standing in a hangar talking we would give each other a little bit of slack, but I could be wrong. Maybe everyone in this thread who knows so much, do indeed exert their prowess over others in person.

We all, as human beings, are subject to parapraxis. It happens near daily even to the most intelligent among us:

In a discussion on a certain topic, often times words surrounding that topic come to mind; licenses, categories, certificates, classes, ratings, permits, permission slips, whatever.

Just last night, I told my wife "I don't know what I'd do with you.."

I meant "I don't know what I'd do without you."

She clearly knew what I meant and found no reason to make an issue of it, we laughed and moved on.

On the Internet this same occurrence becomes a point of argument, maybe it's because it's text, maybe because it's easy to be a dick to others for no real reason, who knows, but there is a "dog eat dog" mentality on many of these message boards that's ridiculous. We sit, waiting for someone to slip, so we can blast them out of the water for their folly.

So, with all that said, I've spent far too much time on this thread and especially this post.

I'd love to be as eloquent and exacting with my language as many of you tread the Internet with, but I am simply not. I try not take the Internet that seriously.

/rant off
 
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It's all BellyUpFish's fault! ;):D
 
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midlifeflyer said:
By looking at the post count? The one I am quoting right now is #155.

Edit: This is 156.
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Wow....... Out of all that, you take issue with the post count??

We are clearly internettin' now.

I wasn't questioning your ability to post count.

You essentially said "How a post like this goes over 140 posts?"

To that question I replied with a very simple, or so I thought, picture..

Let's try it again...

How did this thread go 140+ posts?

This is how, summed up in a picture..

db98f86ba2d3b5ecdb156fb1002635ec.jpg
 
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