In article , John Harlow wrote:
I never, ever fly without at least trying to get traffic advisories, and
it's very rare I don't get it. As a student, because NONE of my instructors
ever did, I didn't think to much about it (they are the pros, don't you
know?). Now, I consider anyone who is to lazy to get flight following as
someone too foolish to fly with.

If I understand right, there is a fair bit of non-flat terrain in the
area the accident occurred. Flight following might simply be impossible.
For example, where I fly gliders, there's a small mountain between us
and the nearest radar facility (our equivalent of flight following is
Radar Information Service). It's only a 2000' mountain, but in the area
I'm towing gliders, you can't even get any radio contact until nearly
3000' MSL let alone radar service. Therefore I don't even bother to try,
instead I remain on the local gliding frequency.

Flight following is fine, but even in small countries often there are
regions where terrain/lack of radar facilities make it impossible.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"