I was under the impression that you had to file some sort of flight plan with the FFA, or whomever, before you took off that had your destionation and flight route listed in the event you got lost. And also, so the radar people had some idea of what was going on. What are the rules and procedures?
Flight plans are not required for VFR flights within the U.S. They’re a good idea though, for cross-country flights, since if you file a flight plan and don’t close it within a half an hour of the stated arrival time people will start looking for you and have an idea where to start a search. Without a flight plan, nobody will know you’re missing. (Which is why it’s a good idea to at least tell someone if you’re going somewhere.)
First, I’ll note that the US outfit that deals with aviation is the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). You would do better to file a flight plan with them than with the Future Farmers of America (FFA).
Flight plans are required for flights done under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR). This would include essentially every scheduled airline flight.
But for flights under Visual Flight Rules (VFR), a flight plan is optional. A large number of flights by small aircraft are done in fair weather and stay below 18,000’ (above which IFR is mandatory), and the pilot elects not to file a flight plan.
Air Traffic Control radar operates in many areas, but fails to cover much of the country that’s remote and/or at low altitudes. An IFR flight is assigned a locally unique transponder code so that information about the aircraft can appear on the radar screen.
Transponders are required for VFR aircraft if they are flying in areas of high-density traffic. If one is aboard, the pilot will cause it to transmit the code 1200, which means “I am a VFR aircraft” unless/until another code is assigned. An aircraft without a transponder still appears on radar screens, though not as prominently (which is why such aircraft must stay out of busy areas).
I notice folks covered the rules but not the procedures.
I haven’t flown for a few years, so things may have changed, but back in my day you called Flight Service on the phone (pilots have a list of phone numbers for this purpose) and tell the nice person who answers that you want to file a flight plan. You tell them who you are, give emergency contact information, tell them what sort of aircraft you’re flying, describe the aircraft you’re flying (license number, color, any other distinctive details that would aid identification), when you are departing, where you are departing from, where you are going to, how long you think it will take you to get there, how much fuel you have on board, and how many passengers if any. There are some differences between VFR and IFR, but I’ll let the IFR pilots explain that as I am only familiar with VFR requirements.
You then go out to your aircraft and take off. Once you are in the air you contact Flight Service via radio to “activate” your flight plan. This just confirms that you have taken off. If you need to adjust estimated times of arrival or whatever that’s when you do so. If you don’t activate the flight plan the system will just chuck it out after a certain time period without activating search and rescue, so if you’re using a flight plan activating it is important to make the system work as intended. It’s also important, once you have landed, to close your flight plan, that is, to contact Flight Service and let them know you have arrived safely (the phrase I most commonly heard was “safe on the ground”) so they can take the flight plan out of the system. If you don’t do that, search and rescue gets activated, then annoyed when they find out you’re fine but forgot to call them. Just so you don’t get the wrong idea - starting search and rescue doesn’t mean they start by launching a fleet of search planes. They start by trying to call you (they like cellphone numbers, obviously) or your destination airport or otherwise try to determine if you simply forgot to call them or if you are really missing. Once they know you’re really missing, THEN they launch the fleet.
One mental stumbling block I’ve encountered with non-pilots is the meme that flights are always strictly point A to point B travel. While that may be true of instrument (IFR) flights it’s not true of VFR.
For example, I might take off, fly 15 miles from the airport to a low traffic area, spend and hour practicing various maneuvers and procedures, then return home. I haven’t gone anywhere, have I? Yet, if I crashed during that hour I’d sure want someone to come looking for me! So I have long had the habit of telling someone what I’m doing, usually my husband. So, for example, before such a practice flight I’d call him up on my cell phone, say “Dear, I’m about to start the airplane. I’ll be practicing stalls and S-turns around Cedar Lake for an hour. I’ll call you when I’m on the ground again”. Should I be overdue making that phone call he would (after unsuccessfully attempting to call me) contact the airport and say “Hey, someone is overdue, here is where they were planning to fly, start search and rescue”.
There also isn’t really any way to file a flight plan saying “I am taking three friends up for an hour flying along the Lake Michigan shore line looking at the sights and taking pretty pictures” because official flight plans are constructed to always have a point A to point B structure. Again, I’d tell someone on the ground what my plans were and roughly where we would be and how long we’d be aloft, and if we’re late returning they would contact the airport.
So there are practical reasons to not file a flight plan, though I would always encourage people to let someone know where they were planning to go as a form of backup. Search and rescue will be done for pilots who are missing and didn’t file a flight plan, the main difference being that a flight plan automatically starts search and rescue if certain conditions are met, and the form used gives searchers the relevant information they need in a compact form.
Just about every restroom at just about every GA airport has a sign inquiring “Did you close your flight plan?” for the simple reason that by the time a pilot has landed, taxied and parked, the overwhelming Task Number One on their brain is usually PEE! By the time that’s taken care of, administrative stuff is forgotten.
Some airports ask the same thing on the road out.
And you can even jog your memory by putting it on your car keys.
One of the differences between IFR and VFR is that you don’t need to contact Flight Service when airborne to activate the flight plan. When IFR, you generally do that with ATC.
That point is actually one of my criticisms of the ATC system, and I think it’s a reason why most VFR pilots don’t file flight plans: It’s a pain the ass to call Flight Service when you’re busy after takeoff. Activating and closing flight plans is much easier when flying IFR.
Another change since Broomstick has been flying is that it’s generally much easier to file flight plans online than to call on the phone. I rarely ever call a briefer these days. Filing online is easy, decreases the chance of errors of transcription, and flight plans go into the system more quickly.
Actually, it is possible to file an IFR flight plan that doesn’t go point A to point B. When I do local training with instrument students we often want to take off, fly to the initial navigation fix that begins the instrument approach, and land back at our home airport. So we file a plan that lists our home airport as both the departure point AND the destination. This is sometimes called a “Round Robin” flight plan. In the remarks section I’ll sometimes add “multiple practice approaches” if we’re planning to do more than one.
An easier and even faster way to be noticed if you crash is to request Flight Following, in areas where radar coverage is extensive enough to make it available. Just call the Approach Control facility that covers the sector you’re in with your particulars, and (workload permitting) they’ll provide radar coverage and traffic advisories.
The recent privatization of Flight Service Stations, and closure of most of them, has made it difficult to get a VFR or even IFR flight plan in the system, not to mention getting decent weather briefings. But that’s what the Internet is for now.
On the other hand, it’d be a good idea to check in with the Future Farmers of America to prevent something like this from happening.