On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 05:35:25 GMT, tony roberts wrote:

Hi Doug

In Canada, if you open a flight plan, you have to close it.
When you think about it, closing it is the only way to tell FSS that you
arrived, as opposed to your being spread over a mountain - and if you
are - you want CASARA launching right now - you don't really want them
saying, well maybe he just forgot!

Flying within Canada, if we are arriving at a towered airport we can ask
them to close it. If we are arriving at a non-towered airport we can
close from the air via FSS or we can close by telephone on the ground.

But in all of these scenarios, we cannot just ignore it and assume that
someone closed it for us. That is absolutely our responsibility to do
that and without that the whole system just falls down.

We have heard over the past few weeks that there have been several
instances where US Customs have refused to close flight plans. That
should be a concern to everyone on both sides of the border - the flight
plan only exists to protect you the pilot - but for now the only real
failsafe is for you to make sure that the plan is closed.

That's about all that I can tell you.

There is an important difference in the way flight plans are opened in
Canada, relative to the US. In the US, a flight plan is not opened until
you take off and contact ATC (IFR plan) or you open it explicitly with FSS
(VFR). In Canada, it seems to be different (or was a few years ago). I
files a VFR plan and was delayed before I could take off. I was unable to
contact FSS (phone line busy and RCO not working) to update my departure
time. I found out later, that the plan was automatically opened at my
estimated departure time, and that SAR procedures were being invoked because
they hadn't heard from me, when I finally was able to contact FSS after I
got airborne.

Closing a flight plan seems to be the same -- if IFR and landing at a
towered airport, it is automatically closed. Otherwise, it must be
explicitly closed with FSS (VFR), or ATC or FSS if IFR.
--
Jay.
(remove dashes for legal email address)