Flight Following question

-----Original Message-----
From: A Lieberma ]
Posted At: Saturday, December 09, 2006 8:48 PM
Posted To: rec.aviation.ifr
Conversation: Flight Following question
Subject: Flight Following question

"Jim Carter" wrote in
news:000801c71c01$25c5bf10$4b01a8c0@omnibook6100:

So far, every time I come out of ROG and request flight following to
it doesn't matter where, I get a discrete squawk that allows
departure to hand me off to Memphis Center, or Dallas, or Kansas
City.
Coming out of LIT however I've never been given anything except a
local code and then about 15 miles out the familiar "radar
advisories
terminated, squawk VFR, have a nice day".

VFR flight following is on a workload permitted basis.


Yep, I'm aware of that which is why I expected maybe that was the issue.
Last Friday however, when I decided to "test" that theory I got handed
off to Memphis and the sector controller seemed very chatty - with
almost nothing else going on.

Little Rock (Adams Field) has instituted a non-IFR pre-taxi clearance
delivery frequency. First you pick up ATIS, then call non-IFR clearance,
then finally you get to talk to ground control for a VFR departure. It's
almost like they are trying to justify some positions rather than
improve safety or efficiency on the ground.

I would think that encouraging flight following would help their
numbers, but since they tend to work as an isolated little unit with VFR
traffic very few of the guys I fly with use them for that purpose. That
can't help their numbers.