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I have just filed my first flight plan - two questions

I have just filed my first flight plan – VFR from Wycombe Air Park to Newtownards in Northern Ireland, flying tomorrow. (I have previously flown as PIC in a plane with a more experience pilot in the P2 seat, with him having done all the filing for me.)

Two questions:

1) Can I open the flight plan and depart before the time shown in the flight plan, without amending the filed plan? If so, how much earlier than filed can I take off?

2) I am landing at an airport with A/G radio service (“The gardener on the radio” as my first flying instructor used to rudely refer to them.) Is such a non-licensed non-ATC radio operator able to close my flight plan for me when I land or will I have to make a phone call instead? If so, who do I call?

Thanks in advance,

Howard

Flying a TB20 out of EGTR
Elstree (EGTR), United Kingdom

Unless there is a TWR it’s your responsibility. Most of AFIS will do it for your as well but not likely from a gardener – unless he/she knows how to do it and your guys agreed.
How soon ? Nobody will care about 5 or 10 minutes but an hour earlier might be issue for the ATC computer I would say. File IFR and use autorouter via Telegram ;-)

LKKU, LKTB

IIRC in Europe a VFR flight plan is kept open for 30 mins. Certainly used to be the case in Spain. After that time you had to re-file. Here in the US I normally make a phone call right before start-up with an ‘assumed ETD’ (that’s the wording here). As for closing, I usually asked the last agency I was talking to to close the FP. The FISO (love the ‘gardener with a radio’!) won’t do it / won’t know how to do it. Of course a tower controller can (not in the US, though. ATC and FlightService are separate here).

In Hungary most FISOs will open or close your flight plan happily.

Hajdúszoboszló LHHO

Howard,

Opening VFR flights plans in the UK at a different time to that specified have never been a problem in my experience. Once it’s the same day, it’s fine! But remember you do have a GAR form submitted, so your departure time should bear some resemblance to that submitted (I would suggest not enough earlier that an officer turning up to met you at a reasonable time would find that you’d already left!)

But as for the flight plan, so long as it’s on the same day, you won’t have a problem in the UK, in my experience, on a VFR flight plan.

The UK has a very weird system of not needing to close a flight plan! It’s the only country that I’ve ever come across with that system. They might be able to close it for you at Newtownards. It depends if they have the AFPEX system or not. Many small airports have given it up as NATS are trying to charge them for it. If they have Afpex, you can ask them to close it for you and they might. If they say that they can’t, you can ask them to send an “arrival message”. (It’s actually the same thing but they often don’t realise that, but they know how to send the arrival message!)

Your other option, is to ask Belfast to close it for you before leaving their frequency. They will probably refuse, saying that you don’t need to close it.

If all else fails, don’t worry about it. There is no need to close flight plans in the UK. But please don’t take this advise outside the UK! Everywhere else expect you to close it or they will instigate search & rescue.

Colm

EIWT Weston, Ireland

PS.

I’ve found these numbers which I think you can use to close it by phone if you wish.
0845 6010483
and
01489 612792

But I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it if you can’t

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Many thanks everyone. (Special thanks to Colm for the local knowledge.)

I’m looking forward to a good long flight and my first solo flight over water. :-)

Howard

Flying a TB20 out of EGTR
Elstree (EGTR), United Kingdom

dublinpilot wrote:

But as for the flight plan, so long as it’s on the same day, you won’t have a problem in the UK, in my experience, on a VFR flight plan.

The UK has a very weird system of not needing to close a flight plan!

So what’s a VFR FP good for then within the UK? If nobody knows your departure time and nobody knows/cares that you have safely landed, this is a totally worthless exercise.

That’s correct – except for S&R (search and rescue) purposes if you disappear and then they have some (possibly totally vague) idea of where to look.

Same goes for any other country in Europe, though in some a FP is mandatory in certain cases (e.g. Spain for CAS, Greece for all flights).

If you go back to basics and ask the Q of what a FP really does, you will probably conclude that – for VFR for sure – it is there because it’s there. It helps to create a “known traffic” picture for national security, because somebody who is a threat is not going to file a FP (yeah, right). It also maintains a load of jobs around the place…

Otherwise, FPs are mandatory for most cases of crossing national borders. I use EuroFPL for that purpose; they give you 10 free ones per month. SD uses EuroFPL anyway.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter, I think 172driver may be alluding to the fact that in most other parts of the world, non-closure within 30 mins of ETA will initiate the Uncertainty phase of SAR…. Presumably in the UK if you go down in a remote area there will be no automatic SAR response…presumably it will be up to friends or family to alert the authorities….thecFP can then be referenced to give a clue as to your crash location….but this may be hours or even days later… Or am I mistaken about the UK?

YPJT, United Arab Emirates
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