I have just filed my first flight plan - two questions

AnthonyQ wrote:

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….

You are correct, AnthonyQ.

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.

Well, I’m no appologist for the UK CAA, and I’ve no insight into their decision making. But if I was to hazzard a guess (and it’s only a guess), I’d guess that it probably used to be compulsory to close them, and they get fed up of people not closing them, so they removed that requirement but let the filing one there.

But to correct some things:
Your departure time is known. Your departure time is not the EOBT shown on the flight plan. Instead when you open the flight plan a “Departure Message” is sent to your arrival airport giving them your actual departure time. They now know your EET and your actual departure time so now have a very good estimate of your arrival time.

Overdue action normally happens when the arrival airport gets a departure message but you don’t show up. If you arrive safely they “close” your flgiht plan by sending an “Arrival Message” to everyone who was copied in on the flight plan.

Now the UK don’t require this arrival message to be sent. However it’s not at all uncommon for a UK airport who has received a departure message, to start asking questions if you don’t turn up. So if you are arriving to an airport with a permanent presence and an AFTN connection then overdue action is quite likely.

However if you arrive at an airport with now permanent present, or no AFTN connection (now more likely as airports are handing back their AFPEX connection) then over due action is much less likely.

The UK CAA, asks that pilots nominate a “Responsible person” to do follow up action if they don’t make contact after landing. I suspect few bother to do this (including me).

But for anyone casually reading this, I’d like to stress that this is a UK only thing. Please make sure that you close flight plans if you are flying anywhere other than the UK. And for the avoidance of doubt, the Republic of Ireland is not part of the UK. You must close your flight plans here.

Colm

172driver wrote:

IIRC in Europe a VFR flight plan is kept open for 30 mins.

I don’t think you can talk about “Europe” in this context as every country have their own system for handling VFR flight plans — as opposed to IFR flight plans.

AnthonyQ wrote:

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….

So it won’t in the UK!? That’s frankly horrible!

In Spain, they take closing of flight plans seriously and will indeed enter into the S&R mode if you fail to close. Luckily, they first will do their best to try and find out if the pilot has not accidentally forgotten to do so. Like by calling to the uncontrolled airfield to check. I recently went to LECD (Pyrenees, uncontrolled field) where you are supposed to call Barcelona FIS after landing. So I did that and the FIS officer asked me ’now that I have you on the line, could you tell me if Cessna xxx and Piper yyy have landed or are in the circuit?

It is taken very seriously in Sweden, too. Once in our club a member didn’t close the flight plan and by the time ATS called the airfield, he had left and there was no one there. They called the police who broke into the hangars to check if the aircraft was there.

This business of forgetting to close FPL’s (been there, done that) is a good reason to put a mobile phone number in the ‘Remarks’ section. I used to think that this was for a home number until an FSS agent (US) pointed out to me, over the air, that it was so they could call me when I forgot to close.

But of course the remarks section doesn’t get transmitted with the body of the FPL, so I’ve no idea how useful this advice is outside the US. In the UK, no use at all, obviously.

Howard wrote:

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

I’ve landed at EGAD. Great flight.

Congratulations Howard on your successful first solo flight over water! Sounds like you enjoyed it!

Aveling wrote:

But of course the remarks section doesn’t get transmitted with the body of the FPL

Yes, but once you’re overdue, the responsible for S&R will send a RQS (request supplemental flight plan information) to the originator of the flight plan, who is then supposed to answer with an SPL (supplementary fpl info) message (see Doc 4444 A2-17). So if needed they can get the remarks section and thus the phone number.

It happens occasionally at autorouter that we get RQS messages when closing the flightplan was forgotten…