Flight Plan Question
 

If I submit a VFR flight plan that shows my intended route passing through Class D airspace (Luton, then through the class D stub in London then skirting through the outer edge of the Gatwick CTA down to the Seaford VOR), will I stand more chance of a transit and FIS than if I just contact in the air?

Nope!..............:p

......but you can always try!

No, a VFR flight plan goes only to departure, destination, and is accessible (if they want to see it) to the regional FIS e.g. London Info. It can also be looked up if you go missing, etc.

Otherwise, VFR flight plans are essentially worthless. There is no implicit request (or a clearance) to transit anything whatsoever.

That's why (in the UK) you can stick any old garbage in a VFR flight plan, e.g. stupid waypoint names which nobody has ever heard of.

Abroad, it can be very different. Some countries look at them very carefully. I had some fun routing past former Yugoslavia last year; the Serbs amended the routing in a specific way.

IFR flight plans are a different animal.

IO - FPL also goes to the diversion fields...

Who is responsible for the AFTN addressing of VFR flight plans?
Is it automatic, or is it up to the pilot filing them to insert the AFTN addresses?

As a FISO, I just fax a flight plan to Manchester (our 'local' Flight Briefing Unit). The clever people there do the AFTN stuff. I think you could address it yourself, but you'd need to know what you were doing and it would probably get corrected/ added to anyway, so best just leave it to the professionals!

AFAIK in the UK they are addressed manually, by looking up addresses in a big book of airports like a phone directory.

If you use the excellent homebriefing.com flight plan filing service (Euro 36/year) they have a computer system for this, which contains that "book" in a database.

There are a lot of quirks in this process. For example, if the destination is LEAX (a sleepy place somewhere near Malaga, unmanned much of the time) then the FP should be addressed to LEMG (Malaga) and this sort of stuff is often done wrong, and is a big reason for VFR flight plans going missing, and having to be filed again when you are sitting all ready to go at the field of departure and the OAT is +35C :)

The other thing which is dodgy is using the DOF/ facility. In the manual system, I have been told by one ATCO, the ATCO sticks any FP that has a DOF/ on it on a clip on the wall and files it on the specified date. This often fails if e.g. he is off work on that day. Homebriefing.com get around this by injecting the FP into the system only on the specified day of flight.

Only if specifically requested by the person submitting it, or if the person addressing the FPL is feeling helpful. It is not automatic, and certainly doesn't happen to IFR FPL's filed under the auspices of IFPS.

Thanks Chili - useful to know. Must be some helpful FPL folks about, cos we get quite a few.