The traffic watch is really only a fraction of the value I get out of
it: knowing that I've got someone on-frequency who knows exactly where
I am already if I have to declare an emergency means that I can spend
just that much more time troubleshooting my problem instead of trying
to give an intelligible location for SAR to use when they're trying to
find my flaming wreckage.

This is precisely why we use FF on pretty much every flight outside the
pattern, especially in winter.

After reading that the AVERAGE length of time between search & rescue
notification and location was 18 hours (!), we realized that we
probably wouldn't survive an accident here in the Midwest between
November and March without the advantage of having ATC know PRECISELY
where we were when we went down.

Of course this is all presuming that we had enough time to broadcast a
"Mayday!" call before the wing came off, or whatever.

This whole thing has been an excellent learning experience, and is both
funny and kinda sad. After ten years of flying around their airspace,
I've grown so used to Chicago Approach sounding ****ed (or indifferent
-- or refusing altogether) about providing flight following -- and
then, if they DID provide flight following, having them do such an
incredibly ****-poor job of traffic notification -- that it simply
never occurred to either of us that they might give a damn if we
dropped off their radar screens.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"