VFR Flight Plans: Are they worth filing ?

[RPMcMurphy]

Another point to ponder on is that VFR flight plans can only be received by airports that have an AFTN connection. There are still some European international airports around that aren't connected, so miss out on any VFR plan details. Their CFMU connections enable them to access IFR plans only, so they have no knowledge of any inbound or outbound VFR flight planned movements until the pilot makes RT contact...

[achimha]

Is this supposed to change with the unified sky initiative?

It's sometimes difficult to find out what to expect when flying abroad. A few years ago in Poland, my experience with FIS made me think they sit in a basement room with a big map and a few wooden airplanes that they move around based on the position requests they issue every other minute. From time to time they would spill coffee on their map and get confused. This year they had RADAR coverage but only from about 5000 AGL.

At the Aero show in Friedrichshafen you can play FIS at the German DFS booth with the actual systems and recorded real world data. The DFS employee does the radio for the aircraft involved and you have to process it, fill out the strips, resolve the odd situation, etc. That was very interesting. Here, FIS all have RADAR screens, the same system as the rest of ATC and when you contact them, the first step is to RADAR identify you. Most FIRs now hand out custom squawk codes, mainly to let the IFR ATC know that FIS are taking care of you. As VFR traffic, you can also fly > FL100 (that's were airspace C starts in Germany) which basically means you get FIS from the IFR ATC. Very convenient (very unlikely to encounter unknown traffic) and always granted in my experience.

French ATC/FIS are very good. My only complaint is that handoff between FIS controllers is often poorly done. They give you frequencies you can't receive, or the follow on controller doesn't know about you. Czech FIS are also excellent.

[mad_jock]

From what I understandin the UK at least there are some outside aviation that would like a VFR plan submitted for every flight.

But really the UK ATC system isn't interested or setup for doing anything meaningful with them.

Also as well I suspect alot of flights don't really have an objective in that yes you may set out to a destination but may go somewhere else in the end. I suspect most pilots who start out doing the good thing and do this once and have to deal with all the fall out then don't bother again.

Take a trip from the South Middle England up to say Wick VFR. Unless its CAVOK over the whole of scotland I won't have a clue which way I am going until I get near Perth depending on the WX. It will either be straight over the top, up the A9 or round the east coast. Over terrian which you would be well advised to have a flight plan in for, for SAR purposes. All I do is not bother with a flight plan and make sure that scottish Info has my routing and ETA for the next major turning point and who I expect to be speaking to. Its not perfect but I would hope it would work.


They do phone up and check, when ever I have asked the next ATC to give them a ring and let them know, they have nearly always already phoned to confirm we are safe.

[peterh337]

Another point to ponder on is that VFR flight plans can only be received by airports that have an AFTN connection. There are still some European international airports around that aren't connected, so miss out on any VFR plan details

I find it puzzling that they would get IFR flight plans but not VFR ones, because both are delivered the same way.

Most smaller airfields do not have an AFTN connection (telex in the old days). They get inbound flight plans faxed to them by some big nearby airport, whose AFTN connection is rigged up to get messages for the small one.

For example an AFTN message addressed to Brac LDSB gets delivered to Split LDSP which then faxes it to Brac (if it looks important ).

This I think is one of the numerous reasons why trying to communicate with airports using the AFTN Free Text Message feature (available in AFPEX) doesn't work most of the time.

In the UK, the regional FBU would fax stuff to fields such as Goodwood, but nowadays, I believe, all these places are supposed to have an AFPEX account, and the "airport" type AFPEX account doesn't time out so they can leave the app running all day, picking up any messages.

VFR flight plans get lost for numerous reasons... they are like emails i.e they get delivered to the specified mailbox address but there is no telling if anybody had read it.

[RPMcMurphy]

Some airports have no AFTN link. The CFMU system is available on the internet, and provides IFR flight plan information, but no VFR.
My local airport is currently assessing if it is economically viable to have an AFTN link installed. This airport is inside controlled airspace and provides tower and approach procedural ATC. The local FIR radar unit holds details of VFR plans into and out of the airport but does not normally pass on the details until the aircraft are within twenty miles inbound prior to entering the control zone.

[reportyourlevel]

I must admit to not having read all the replies so sorry if this has already been said. If you file a VFR FPL then the aerodrome of departure will send a signal (called a DEP) to the destination to tell them your airborne time. The destination will take overdue action (starting with phone calls to relevant ATC units, ending with launching SAR assets) at ATD+EET+30mins. So half an hour after your estimate for the destination they will start looking for you if you haven't showed up. this will not happen without the FPL. There is no "flight following" - obviously you can get ATSOCAS but the only way to guarantee your destination will take overdue action is to file a FPL.

[Flylogical]

reportyourlevel says

If you file a VFR FPL then the aerodrome of departure will send a signal (called a DEP) to the destination to tell them your airborne time. The destination will take overdue action (starting with phone calls to relevant ATC units, ending with launching SAR assets) at ATD+EET+30mins. So half an hour after your estimate for the destination they will start looking for you if you haven't showed up. this will not happen without the FPL.

This is how I always thought the system would work, hence I always filed VFR FPLs, safe in the knowledge.... But reading the posts, it seems, in reality, this is rather hit-or-miss in the UK (and mostly "miss"). The destination is under no obligation to do anything. They may make some phone calls, they may not. The may not even have read the FPL (and thereby know what EET should have been, etc). This confusion/uncertainty is why I started this thread...and it seems to have come full circle (!). It seems there is big gap between what we would like to happen, and what would actually happen in a given situation. This is why I am mildly shocked. I thought this would all be "solid"... (you get the impression of solidity when you're learning to fly and learning about FPLs -- all sounds excellent in theory...but sort of pointless if it doesn't actually work).

[peterh337]

Yeah... intelligent people are constantly trying to rationalise how "aviation" works, but unfortunately it doesn't work in an intelligent way

The system has been developed ad-hoc over many decades, to serve the airline business, and for most of that time it ran on a telex-based network (now called the AFTN, which presently runs on high speed telecom links, though I suspect some of it may use telex in parts of the deepest Africa ) which was used to send messages concerning flights, and lots of other stuff like issuing Notams, weather observations at airports (Metars), etc. In the 3rd world, some of the AFTN traffic even ran on short wave radio links, and there is/was quite a sizeable ham radio crowd which used to build kit to decode these transmissions

With telex, you did not need special integrity measures because the system always provided a receipt confirmation (as a result, telex messages carried almost total evidential weight in cases of a dispute). Good stuff.... I even remember my business telex number from 1978: 85715

Also the messages were always brief and standard and nobody needed to speak English to understand them. For example the flight plan (which is no more than just an AFTN message) is a standard layout.

Once the stuff went "electronic" and got disconnected at the human end (no more telex machine operators feeding in the paper tape) you didn't really know if anybody was reading it anymore.

VFR GA was never supported properly; most of the world doesn't know what it is...

Yes flight plans are legally required to cross national frontiers, so we have to file them.

I don't suppose anything is going to change anytime soon

The biggest change was over the past few years, when electronic (internet) filing arrived. Homebriefing.com was the first outfit and now there are numerous options. The UK agencies resisted this fiercely for as long as they could, because of likely job losses at the FBUs where dozens of people were sitting, filing about 3000 faxed VFR flight plans each month. Once the FBUs were closed, this job protection was no longer relevant and Afpex was introduced.

In Europe, the IFR flight plan system runs on a centralised database (Eurocontrol, a.k.a. IFPS) and is a lot more robust. You file a flight plan, say 1hr before EOBT, and in seconds it pops up at the towers at both ends and as soon as your allocated transponder code is seen on radar (this detail varies according to country) the flight plan is sent to all IFR controllers along the filed route. The smoothness has to be seen to be believed. It does go wrong but rarely.

[2 sheds]

it seems, in reality, this is rather hit-or-miss in the UK (and mostly "miss"). The destination is under no obligation to do anything.

Not so if the destination aerodrome has an ATS unit. The situation is as described by reportyourlevel. In fact, the same procedures apply to a flight plan for an IFR flight outside controlled airspace. Also, in practice, preliminary overdue action will frequently be started well before ETA+30 which is merely the latest time for it to commence.

2 s

[mad_jock]

Also as well I suspect alot of flights don't really have an objective in that yes you may set out to a destination but may go somewhere else in the end. I suspect most pilots who start out doing the good thing and do this once and have to deal with all the fall out then don't bother again.

Yep 2 sheds which is why I said the above. They get side tracked or don't get a crossing clearance or experence more head wind than they expect and then discover a huge fuss when they they do eventually arrive and don't bother again.

Up north it doesn't happen so much I suspect the first port of call is scottish info who most of us use. Should imagine down south with the multitude of different service which it possible to speak to it might be a bit of a pain to track the aircraft down. I susppose if it has a mode S it might make life easier.

[mm_flynn]

My understanding is the UK has a different process than everyone else for VFR flightplans. Most countries have process that says 'no news is bad news'. So if you have activated a plan (by the departure airport sending a departure message, or you calling up a service and asking for your plan to be activated), the 'system' expects an arrival message within 30 minutes of ETA and if they do not get it, over due action is commenced.

The UK operates on the system 'no news is good news', so unless the system has a reason to think there is bad news over due action will not be commenced.

If flying from an ATC field to an ATC field, during opening hours, with VFR flightplan and the arrival field has received a departure message but you don't show up, that, in all likelihood , would cause them to commence over due action.

I have never quite understood how this works for a VFR flightplan from say France to a private strip. Clearly the French won't receive an arrival message unless you call some local atsu and get them to send it (which no one seems to do) the French won't know if you have arrived. I have never heard of an issue with the French searching for planes returning to the UK so assume they must ignore unclosed plans to Brittain.

The bottom line is the UK is very different from everywhere else on this subject and a VFR plan is not particularly useful for raising the alarm (except the specific case of arriving to a field with an active ATSU). However, once the alarm is raised it does help them project you last known position to where you reasonably might have gone down.

[GeeWhizz]

As per the common view above, VFR FPLs are of limited use unless filed for legal reasons e.g. international trips.

The most useful a VFR FPL can be is for traffic volume planning at ATC controlled airports. More FPLs mean more staff need to available to cope with the capacity at the correct time. For en-route agencies it's more paperwork to read for the sake of a quick RT exchange.

Also FPLs do provide a 'tracking' tool should an emergency occur e.g. SAR. Or perhaps the destination needs to find out who is controlling a planned inbound flight to advise of poor weather or airport unavailability i.e. something else crashed into the runway and its no longer fit for use. A way of providing an early warning to divert if you will. These rely on a flightplan being activated via the departure message (DEP).

As for overdue action (OA), it's usually the responsibility of the destination airport to take OA when:

1. a fixed wing aircraft fails to arrive at or is not in contact with the destination aerodrome at the earliest of i) ETA radar entry or other specified terminal calling point, or ii) ETA overhead or landing.

2. a helicopter fails to arrive at or is not in contact with its destination i) at the end of its notified endurance for flights over water, or ii) one hour after the end of its notified endurance for flights over land.

These of course the latest times that OA should be taken, and do not prohibit OA being sought if doubt exists as to the safety of an aircraft. But departure aerodromes are not normally responsible for OA. Emergency action is of course taken by whoever is nearest.

At a controlled airport a FPL will be closed on arrival by ATC/flight planning/airport operations. For uncontrolled aerodromes it is the captains responsibility or sometimes even an AFPEX fluent radio operator.

For aerodromes without ATC such as Radio or Information stations... this is all more or less irrelevant. I stick to the CAA guidelines ref. VFR FPLs: no submitted unless I have to or flying over inhospitable terrain... neither done very often

[peterh337]

I have never quite understood how this works for a VFR flightplan from say France to a private strip. Clearly the French won't receive an arrival message unless you call some local atsu and get them to send it (which no one seems to do) the French won't know if you have arrived. I have never heard of an issue with the French searching for planes returning to the UK so assume they must ignore unclosed plans to Brittain.

That's a very good point.

After a farm strip departure, you are supposed to do one of the following

1. Get somebody with an Afpex account (they can use yours ) to issue a DEP message

2. Get the local FIS unit to issue the DEP message

3. Do it yourself, with a satellite phone internet connection and running Afpex

As you say, I am sure the French just ignore UK inbound flight plans, and perhaps too few people depart UK farm strips for say Germany.

[achimha]

In Germany they do search for you if you fail to close within 30 minutes of the filed arrival time. Happened to me several times. However, nobody files a plan these days unless they're crossing a border that requires a flight plan. Germany does not require VFR flight plans when coming from abroad or when going abroad so you only need it if the other country requires it. For France it's mandatory and when landing at a non towered airstrip in France, I always call up the French AIS and close the plan.

The "best" experience I had so far was on a VFR trip from Poland to Germany via the Czech Republic. Due to weather, I couldn't cross the mountains between the Czech Republic and Germany and had to turn south to Austria to follow the danube. All was done with FIS from the start to arrival but my flight plan was never forwarded to Austria so all the time I was flying through Austria, I was missing. The extra time required made the German AIS initiate the uncertainty phase and I just arrived in time in German airspace to avoid a SAR mission. My attempts to find a passage through the obscured mountains with lots of 360s on the radar track probably didn't give them much confidence when they started investigating my whereabouts. Never seen them to happy to hear me on the radio

[peterh337]

Germany does not require VFR flight plans when coming from abroad or when going abroad

Well I learn something every day

so you only need it if the other country requires it

which is, AFAIK, in all cases?

[achimha]

which is, AFAIK, in all cases?

No, I know of 4 countries that don't require them either: Austria, Netherlands, Czech Republic and Poland (unless you're going to a towered field). It's in the AIP.

All the cross-country flight plan requirement serves is to find out which SAR is supposed to go looking for you. With today's technology (RADAR tracks, Mode S), you don't have to look at the flight plan's EET for border crossing.

Reminds of an old joke: Bavarian border patrol discover a dead body right at the border to Austria. It's a lovely day and they don't want to spend time with the paperwork, so they decide to move the corpse over the border to Austria. Some time later, the Austrian patrol walks by that place and the policeman exclaims: "Look, the dead man is back here again!".

[BackPacker]

No, I know of 4 countries that don't require them either: Austria, Netherlands, Czech Republic and Poland (unless you're going to a towered field). It's in the AIP.

Interesting. I don't know about the others, but the Dutch AIP states:

A flight plan shall be submitted prior to operating:

Any flight or portion thereof to be provided with air traffic control service;
Any IFR flight;
Any flight across the Amsterdam FIR boundary;
Any flight or portion thereof operating in the North Sea Area Amsterdam and North Sea area V (see ENR 2.2 paragraph 3 and chart ENR 6-2.5);
Any VFR flight operated in airspace class A, under special conditions (see ENR 1.2 paragraph 3.2).

A flight plan can be transmitted during flight by radio if the flight plan covers only part of the flight. This does not apply to flights of which parts are executed:

Within the Schiphol CTR;
In controlled airspace class A;
In controlled airspace class B, except if the flight is carried out with a glider;
In controlled airspace class C, above FL195.

I agree that the wording is a bit ambiguous, but "if the flight plan covers only part of the flight" does not sounds like an appropriate exception to me. If your flight is across a FIR boundary, then the whole flight is an international flight, and not "part of the flight". So I don't think the exception clause would apply here.

I fly from a controlled airport (Rotterdam) and in the AD section it specifically states that all flights need a FPL, so I'm not keeping track of this all too closely. But I know that in the past the requirement for FPLs when crossing a FIR boundary was more explicit, and specific exceptions were made for flight between a few uncontrolled airports close to the border. (Teuge-Stadtlohn for instance.)

Also, a few years ago we had a presentation from a Dutch Mil controller and with regards to FIR crossings he said something along the lines of "We can correlate your Mode-S return with the FPL so we know it's you. That fulfills the obligation of notifying the FIR crossing. So don't call us if all you want is to tell us you've crossed the FIR boundary. Only call us if you actually need something from us." That, again, would suggest the authorities expect a FPL for any international flight.

[achimha]

Right, for Holland I'm not sure but the other states clearly state it in the AIP. Probably only a matter of time. However filing a flight plan is so easy nowadays compared to some years ago.

[Steve6443]

Quote:
Why would you have to close a flight plan that has not been activated? If it is not activated a reasonable time after the stated departure time, it just falls out of the system.

OK, I was a bit slack there. Let's say I have successfully departed as per the VFR Flight Plan, thereby activating it. Here's the key question: if I then fail to show up at the destination, and have made no emergency calls etc en route -- I simply fail to show up within the planned window -- will the destination ATC (or the departure ATC) take any action ? are they obliged to take any action given that I have filed a plan ? or will I simply fall out of the system or -- not quite as bad -- be at the mercy of the decision of ATC on the day ? This is what I am trying to get at: will the VFR Flight Plan "system" trigger a SAR response if I fail to show up on an activated flight plan ? or, as previous responders suggest, will a SAR-response only be triggered if someone (informally) assigned by me as a "flight follower" (e.g., friend/relative/flying-club etc) complains that I am missing (and then the VFR Flight Plan may be retrieved from the system to help locate me)...

(By contrast, presumably a no-show on an IFR plan will trigger a SAR-response etc, even without a "flight follower" i.e., ATCO are obliged to actively respond...)

Here in Germany they use your flight plans to trigger SAR activity. So, if I remember my PPL Theory training correctly, should you log a flight plan and activate it, the plan has the maximum flight time noted - if you don't close the plan before the maximum flight time expires, the SAR activity starts - I believe it's 30 minutes longer that maximum flight time (after all, max flight time on the VFR plan is total fuel less 30 minutes).

At first they will call your destination airport / alternate to see whether you have actually arrived. If you haven't arrived (ie, you landed elsewhere and forgot to close the flight plan upon arrival), then the rescue mode is activated 15 minutes later where they send the search and rescue teams out looking along your flight path. Whilst doing our theory exams we were repeatedly warned - if you don't close your flight plan or have them automatically closed by landing at an international airport, it can be pretty darned expensive because the pilot is responsible for the cost of the SAR operation......

[david viewing]

I met a chap who was in receipt of a 20,000 Euro bill for SAR services after landing at a German airfield from Scandinavia for an overnight and forming the impression that the tower radio operator had closed his FPL. They hadn't. Quite why SAR could not just send the local plod to the airfield to look for him I don't know.

I always feel deeply uncomfortable about not closing VFR plans when returning to my UK base, usually after closing time, from abroad. Asking UK ATC to close a plan whilst still in the air produces a shower of spurious excuses including "not until your wheels are on the ground due to our duty of care" and the other day "we are not allowed to do that". All of which is rubbish since it doesn't make any difference anyway.

I think being in the frame of mind to always close VFR FPL's regardless of where you are is essential discipline to learn because while it does not matter here, it certainly does everywhere else. It's very easy to forget to close an FPL, epecially when landing at a strange airfield and becoming distracted. In my experience the only reliable way to do it (especially in US) is to close from the air before contacting approach or tower, if there is one, because in US tower will not close an FPL.

The UK's sloppy, amateurish system encourages bad habits which can prove very expensive to the pilot.