I get FF whenever I fly VFR, but there are times when that may be a
hassle. If you are engaged in conversation with your pax, it is easy to
miss an ATC transmission. I've heard ATC chide pilots "if you want
flight following, you better listen to the radio".





"Chip Jones" wrote in
ink.net:


"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
paul kgyy wrote:
I was taught that, if I needed to file an IFR flight plan in the
middle of a trip, I should contact FSS first to file and get
clearance, then contact ATC. On the other hand, I hear frequent
references in rec.aviation to pilots who just contact ATC directly.
Does this depend on how busy ATC is - i.e. near Chicago contact FSS,
near Moline contact Moline approach?

It absolutely depends on how busy ATC is. Around here (New York), if
they're not busy, you can call them up cold and and make your
request. They'll take the important info (destination, aircraft
type, etc) and give you a route. Sometimes they'll say they're too
busy and tell you to go talk to FSS like you're supposed to.

What I find works best is if things are iffy, is to get VFR flight
following first. Once they've already got you in the system,
assigned a code, radar identified, etc, if you later tell them you
need to get a clearance, they're more likely to handle you directly.

If push comes to shove, if you tell them you need a clearance NOW,
they'll get you one. But the idea is to never let things degenerate
to the point where you have to start playing trump cards.

Actually Roy, ATC'll get you one *if* they can. ATC usually can,
especially under the circumstances you describe. However, the pilot
really doesn't have a "trump" card when it comes to pop-up IFR. You
need one on a busy frequency, you might be SOL for a while as ATC is
occupied with higher priority stuff. My point is that you are in no
legal position to demand IFR if you are already airborne flying VFR.

I totally agree with you about getting F/F making a pop-up easier to
get. Under VFR Flight Following, you already have almost all of the
ingredients in play that ATC needs to handle you IFR. Converting F/F
to IFR on a busy frequency is usually no more workload on the
controller other than issuing you a clearance and a good IFR altitude.
Because I already am providing you radar service, I can give you a
clearance with one transmission. Then, I either send you over to
Radio to file the full SAR stuff (souls on board etc) or else get you
to spit it all out on the taped frequency if I have room/time on the
bandwidth. If something happens to cause a need for SAR, Center can
pull the voice tape and access your information. In an emergency, we
can access the voice data in under five minutes.

I've never understood why more pilots on VFR cross countries don't use
Flight Following. Personally, I've never had to turn down VFR radar
service to any pilot no matter how busy I've been with IFR traffic
(and I'm plenty busy, often). Centers don't have to separate VFR's in
Class E, which is where most of our flight following happens. Thus,
there's no reason for ARTCC's not to provide the service, even when
the freq is non-stop with radio traffic. Almost every Center
controller I know down here would rather be talking to all parties
when making traffic calls to known aircraft. The unknown VFR guys
represent a traffic wildcard and in my view increase the workload when
issuing traffic to known aircraft, rather than decreasing it.

Chip, ZTL