IFR and Flight Plan closing question.

[ptwaugh]

I'm a ATC at VATSIM ZLA sector (ie a simulated ATC environment for FS), and had a couple of questions for pilots.

If you are flying IFR and landing at say LAX, when socal approach completes your handoff to tower, is your IFR and/or flight plan automatically closed?

Are flight plans closed by tower or dispatch, or must you close them somehow manually?

At the VATSIM ZLA artcc we strive for realism and that's why I'm asking. Currently, what we do is after aircraft park at the gate, ground is saying, "SWA1087 your flight plan is closed 1834Z" and although not real obviously, we thank the pilot for flying ZLA. Now we are thinking that advising the FP is closed is probably not realistic either.

Comments?

Thanks,

Patrick

[P.Pilcher]

I rarely hear flight plans mentioned on the R/T. On landing it is the tower assistant who sends an arrival signal via the AFTN to the departure airfield, but this is never mentioned. It is assumed that it is done. A pilot is only required to request the closure of a flight plan if he lands at an alternate which was not declared on the original plan (and ATC fail to ask). If due to headwinds a pilot finds that his ETA is going to be half an hour or more later than his declared estimate, a revised E.T.A. needs to be passed. But this really only applies to flying in the FIR, not on airways or other recognised routes because the ATC computers work out your actual groundspeed and thus your E.T.A's which is why they are not passed (in Europe or the U.S. anyway).

[kabz]

Here in the US, we can have the following situations :

1. On an IFR flight plan, when you land, the tower closes the flight plan once you have landed, assuming you are going into a towered airport.

2. If you are landing at a untowered airport, (which may have an ILS, VOR etc approach), approach control will say bye bye and let you go to local advisory frequency at a safe distance from the airport, and you are on your own.
In this case ...

a) You can stay IFR and call from the ground once you have landed to close your flight plan. Approach usually remind you to call prior to switching you ... your cue to do ...

b) You can cancel IFR (closing your flight plan) whilst still talking to approach, in which case you are probably in non-Bravo/Charlie airspace. You are then under VFR rules. (This is my normal strategy)

There are some wrinkles to this, and the system is quite flexible, though I heard a big fight when a pilot cancelled IFR going into Houston Intercontinental, to doge getting queued up with other IFR arrivals. That might be a whole other discussion.