Howard wrote:
would it have been possible for you to have closed the flight plan after you had landed in France by calling the AFPEx helpdesk in the UK
Anyone with AFTN access can send an arrival message. The question is if they do. Since they need to know the departure and destination aerodromes, and departure and destination times, they might want to do it only if they have the original flight plan. So for a flight not involving UK airspace, they might not want to do it.
In france, you could simply call a BRIA (numbers are in the AIP and VFR atlas).
For flightplans filed via autorouter, you can also do it via the telegram interface.
If you’re worried then always get some sort of service (basic or traffic if available)…sort of akin to flight following…
I just called the AFPEx help desk again – the chap I spoke to told me there is no need to close a VFR flight plan in the UK. So I asked: How do you know if I have landed safely then? The chap on the phone said “You are meant to nominate a responsible person to call us at AFPEx if they think you have NOT landed safely i.e. to raise the alarm.” He then asked if I want to close my VFR flight plan (which Wycombe Air Park would have done if I had remembered to ask them, which I didn’t). I said yes. He closed it…but it was of course rather pointless after what he had told me.
Hmmm.
Howard
WP,
The UK is very different to everywhere else. As for asking the final frequency, try it in the UK. There is probably an 80% chance that they will refuse and advise you that you don’t need to do so in the UK.
Some agencies will, but most refuse point blank.
dublinpilot wrote:
I’ve found these numbers which I think you can use to close it by phone if you wish.
0845 6010483
and
01489 612792But I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it if you can’t
Hmmn…. give those SAR pilots some practice??? You ready to pay the bill for the search?
Seriously, I think it best to get the plan closed. Just ask whichever Info you’re speaking to to do it before switching over to final frequency, or just call once on the ground, But make sure it is done.
@Peter would it have been possible for you to have closed the flight plan after you had landed in France by calling the AFPEx helpdesk in the UK, or would the UK AFPEx office not have had authority to do so because you had landed in another country? I’m just wondering if, absent some absentmindedness, calling the UK helpdesk is always a useful get out of jail card for UK departing pilots who have filed a flight plan and land somewhere that can’t close a plan (albeit a customs airport).
I have forgotten to close flight plans in France 2x and each time it was OK and it turned out they telephone the destination airport fire crew room and ask them whether the plane is parked there. They call it a “non standard procedure” 
Airborne_Again wrote:
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,
In France too. Don’t ask how I know. 
@Alioth, I’m sure what you say is true, but also Belfast City’s radar is NOTAM’d as u/s. (Belfast Aldergrove nearby is mentioned as providing radar approach coverage where possible, for Belfast City approaches, but their coverage doesn’t extend out to the Irish Sea – well, not well enough to provide a service to me.)
Howard wrote:
ATC were very helpful but there was no radar service possible between the isle of man and the NI coast. (There’s a radar unit u/s apparently)
That’s an ongoing thing, I’m afraid… The Isle of Man got a new radar but it’s a unique type (multilateration, the idea is so that Ronaldsway radar have a view of the entire island, which is not possible with the existing one due to the terrain) and the CAA haven’t approved it yet (and it’s been dragging on for a good two or three years now, with the manufacturer footing the bill) so the increasingly old Watchman is still in use. If it goes out it’s usually the secondary radar.
