Flight following - not sure why I didn't use it before

steingar said:
I have never, in 20 years, had anyone on the radio warn me about birds. Most of the places I fly ATC can't see them either unless they're carrying avian transponders.
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How about skydiving ops? The ADS-B show which airplanes above you are tossing out meat bombs?

BTDT. On FF. Multiple times.
 
denverpilot said:
How about skydiving ops? The ADS-B show which airplanes above you are tossing out meat bombs?

BTDT. On FF. Multiple times.
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Ditto. And as a backup / double check on active MOA’s, traffic, easy transition to approach controller, etc. Don’t leave home without it .
 
denverpilot said:
How about skydiving ops? The ADS-B show which airplanes above you are tossing out meat bombs?

BTDT. On FF. Multiple times.
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Around here I hear the aircraft on the radio before ATC tells me about them. And they’re NOTAMed.
 
The only freq I hear jump planes on is the flight following freq - where the jump plane is using ATC to help keep planes clear of the area.
 
steingar said:
Yup. I pick them up on my preflight and tune the radio to them when I get in range. Don't you?
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Tune what in? Most of them are talking to Center. A few bomb airports but others bomb non-airports. Only way you’re “tuning” those is by utilizing FF.
 
denverpilot said:
Tune what in? Most of them are talking to Center. A few bomb airports but others bomb non-airports. Only way you’re “tuning” those is by utilizing FF.
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Some airports around here host skydiving on occasion and have no indication on the charts. Not sure how you’d magically know what to tune.
 
Wow, lotta opinions. I also use FF for any trip 50nm or more. I’m under a Bravo but I don’t think that is a factor. I like the communication and if there is a problem, we are already talking.

Amazing how many don’t talk to atc. In a type group I was in, the local guy that set up the meet ups had to try and only use non towered fields or many would not come for fear of the controllers,,,,
 
When I was hauling jumpers I talked on the CTAF to make traffic calls always and talked to ATC when we were doing the free fall jumps from 14,000. The facility I called was dependent on who owned the airspace. Sometimes it was center and others it was an approach facility.

Regardless of the jump pilots inclusion of ATC they should always be announcing on the CTAF for the airport.
 
I've witnessed a number of skydiving operations. They were all NOTAM'd and I listened to the pilots dropping the meatbombs. Suppose I could have missed one, though no one on FF ever warned me about them when I used it.
 
steingar said:
I've witnessed a number of skydiving operations. They were all NOTAM'd and I listened to the pilots dropping the meatbombs. Suppose I could have missed one, though no one on FF ever warned me about them when I used it.
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Yep. Notams are always accurate and you read every one, I’m sure. Rotfl
 
Rgbeard said:
I’m not being sarcastic when I say that this blows my mind.
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I think that there are a lot of pilots in semi-rural/rural areas that have less congested airspace and never really learn to use ATC. If you’re strictly recreational and don’t fly into D/C/B airspace regularly you can basically never really need to talk to center/approach. I also work with a lot of ag guys, they really never need to talk to ATC. But yes, in a perfect world all pilots would be proficient speaking with ATC.
 
Arrow76R said:
Always for more than 50 miles. Less than that I talk to approach controls.
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How do you talk to approach without getting FF? Why do they want to talk to you if they are not giving you a code and entering you to to their system? And if you are entered into the system, how are you not on FF?

To get FF, I call up NY Approach. I do just listen to them sometimes if I am just flying around my home airport because I am right next to a busy jump zone and the jump planes talk to NY approach so I can hear when they are about to let the jumpers go. Sometimes I hear the jump plane getting a delay because of me (Blue Sky 1, unidentified traffic in the area, delay the jump), and I change course so they can jump. In those situations, I guess I could cold call NY App and let them know I am the unidentified traffic in the way, but they are usually so busy that you can hardly get through. So they don’t want random airplanes chatting to them without a code.
 
If I'm sightseeing or aimlessly flying around I always use FF as soon as I'm able. Now that I have my IR, if I'm going somewhere I just file IFR. Stay out of the +500 alts and hopefully away from the VFR guys that may not be using FF.
 
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Doctor Bob said:
Only later after I got my license and after some very long XC flying and listening to other pilots that I realized even the “big boys” flying the commercial planes screw up and nobody seemed to care.
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I was flying back to Tucson from Santa Fe a couple of years ago, with flight following, and somewhere a little south of Albuquerque someone comes on the radio: "Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached our final cruising altitude and the fasten seat belt sign is now off. The cabin crew will be coming through [...]" He went through the entire spiel. After he was done, someone chimes in "Could I get some more peanuts?"

After a couple moments, with a laugh, "Wow, I haven't done that in a long time. Sorry guys."

:)
 
I get FF for anything longer than when I'm going to the fuel farm.
 
The 5% or so of the time I fly VFR, I ALWAYS get FF. The only exception is if I'm literally going tower to tower, which is basically FF anyway. If the airport offers it, I get it on the ground, not in the air. I don't see it as some sort of insult to my manhood that ATC might tell me where to point the nose for a few minutes to keep me from running into another hard to see, shiny metal object with closing speeds of at least 300 miles per hour. I view people who intentionally avoid FF (not those who get the rare denial of FF from ATC) as engaging in rather questionable ADM - especially in anything resembling busy airspace.

Rgbeard said:
Do we have people too timid to talk to a controller? A radio is scary or something?
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It is just awful with some people.

smv said:
I know a several pilots who were trained at untowered fields and their ONLY interaction with ATC was during their "three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop at an airport with an operating control tower" solo cross-country flight where they had to talk to the tower. Some CFIs do not seem to think it very important.
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I think this problem has gotten less prevalent as the CFI world has been filled more with the 0-1500 folks trying to get to the airlines. They need to know how to talk to ATC, so they seem to work their students the same way. The crotchety old guy has seen diminished importance.

Tarheelpilot said:
Yes. Plenty of them. Some instructors really suck.
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Tarheelpilot said:
I know. It’s sad.
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Yeah, some really do suck at certain aspects of flying.

steingar said:
Haven’t used FF since I got ADSB in. For the most part I see what they see. Some big terminals have primary radar and can spot targets not running a transponder, but those are mostly areas I don’t frequent.
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Yeah, we've had this conversation. Please don't fly in any airspace around me VFR.
 
Flight following is beneficial in several ways beyond just helping you spot traffic. If you get lost (almost a "lost art" nowadays), controllers can always give you a vector. Not sure about nasty wx ahead? They can probably give you an update based on their radar. And finally, if you have an emergency, no need to try to tell someone where you are. They already know.

 
samiamPA said:
Today I was on a short XC flight at 3000, and had flight following. They advised of traffic at my 1:00, but could not tell me more because the traffic was not speaking with ATC. I could not see them because I was flying right at the sun. They advised a climb to 3500. I saw them pass right in front of me at 3000 - if not for the climb, it would have been uncomfortably close (or worse).

For the first 300 hours and 7 years that I have been flying, I never really used flight following. I know why - it's because I wasn't comfortable with talking to ATC. After a couple of IFR lessons and moving my airplane to a controlled airport, I feel so much more comfortable and it is no big deal.

If there is any VFR pilot out there who doesn't use this resource, I'd highly recommend going outside of your comfort zone and getting the training to feel comfortable with using this. It is so helpful to have another set of eyes watching the sky for me. In addition to traffic, I feel like now I always have someone by my side in the event of an emergency.
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Glad you tried it out. I think the answer to your question has a lot to do with where you trained. I made the deliberate choice to train at a busy airport (the equivalent of a US class B airport), so from day one, for every flight, it was

ATIS - Clearance - Ground - Tower - Terminal - Practice Area - ATIS - Terminal - Tower - Ground

As a result, talking to ATC came to be a natural part of my flying (I was comfortable with radio phraseology and wake-turbulence separation long before I was ready to solo), and I learned to think of them as flying partners rather than adversaries. (The downside of that was that my training was a bit more expensive, with the Hobbs metre ticking over sometimes waiting in line for takeoff, etc.) As soon as I had my PPL, it was natural that I'd use flight following, because I was used to having ATC's voices with me in the cockpit, and I knew how to negotiate what I needed. The first time I flew down into NY airspace, it was almost exactly the same as flying in Ottawa, Toronto, or Montreal terminal airspace—I felt right at home, and didn't find them fast-talking or rude at all. :)

OTOH, if I'd trained at a small, uncontrolled airport, I probably would have saved $1K or so in costs, and would have been much more comfortable with uncontrolled airport procedures with an ATF/CTAF—they still make me a bit nervous, even though I've been about 12 years at an uncontrolled class G field—but I probably would have been afraid of making a mistake or being judged every time I talked to ATC (even though I'd have had some small token experience with them during training), and might have hesitated to use flight following at first (why set myself up for failure?), and fumbled a bit over my radio phraseology.

Flying's all about trade-offs.
 
samiamPA said:
Today I was on a short XC flight at 3000, and had flight following. They advised of traffic at my 1:00, but could not tell me more because the traffic was not speaking with ATC. I could not see them because I was flying right at the sun. They advised a climb to 3500. I saw them pass right in front of me at 3000 - if not for the climb, it would have been uncomfortably close (or worse).

For the first 300 hours and 7 years that I have been flying, I never really used flight following. I know why - it's because I wasn't comfortable with talking to ATC. After a couple of IFR lessons and moving my airplane to a controlled airport, I feel so much more comfortable and it is no big deal.

If there is any VFR pilot out there who doesn't use this resource, I'd highly recommend going outside of your comfort zone and getting the training to feel comfortable with using this. It is so helpful to have another set of eyes watching the sky for me. In addition to traffic, I feel like now I always have someone by my side in the event of an emergency.
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I agree with you. I felt the same but jumped right into instrument training after I got my PPL. Haven’t flown much solo though. I think in the future I’ll just do IFR flight plans since ATC takes care of your altitudes, airspace clearances and traffic. I haven’t done much flight following so I’ll have to practice. You need to contact the FSS? Not control/approach right?
 
David Megginson said:
Glad you tried it out. I think the answer to your question has a lot to do with where you trained. I made the deliberate choice to train at a busy airport (the equivalent of a US class B airport), so from day one, for every flight, it was

ATIS - Clearance - Ground - Tower - Terminal - Practice Area - ATIS - Terminal - Tower - Ground
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Trained at a class C, so yeah, same thing for me.
 
N1120A said:
Yeah, we've had this conversation. Please don't fly in any airspace around me VFR.
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No problem there. Don't let the door hit your six on the way out. The number of midairs that occurs in any given year can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Your'e far more likely to run afoul of weather, run out of gas, or even have your engine konk off on takeoff. You guys spend too much of your time and energy worried about mid air collisions.
 
In Canada, in addition to flight following, we have a common enroute frequency 126.7 MHz: it's like a giant party line (for people old enough to remember those).

There's no rule, but generally speaking, on a VFR flight we'll make position reports on 126.7 MHz and coordinate with each-other when we're sightseeing or otherwise buzzing around down low (e.g. below 3,000 ft AGL), and we'll ask for flight following for cross-country flights at higher altitudes, where we're more likely to be sharing the air with IFR traffic and are high enough to show up on Centre's radar. (Once you go more than a couple of hundred miles north of the U.S. border, there often no radar coverage, so even the IFRs will be squawking 1000 and giving position reports on 126.7, especially in class G).

And, in either case, there's always NORDO traffic like gliders, ultralights, balloons, Cubs, flocks of geese, etc, so flight following is just one more layer of safety in the so-called Swiss cheese model, not the whole thing. We have to keep our eyes mostly outside the cockpit regardless.

The nice thing about flight following or a common enroute frequency is that it's not a visual distraction, unlike fixating on your tablet scanning for TIS-B traffic (which also keeps your eyes inside the plane).
 
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steingar said:
No problem there. Don't let the door hit your six on the way out. The number of midairs that occurs in any given year can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Your'e far more likely to run afoul of weather, run out of gas, or even have your engine konk off on takeoff. You guys spend too much of your time and energy worried about mid air collisions.
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Running afoul of weather is self inflicted. Running out of gas is self inflicted. You can still fly the plane when the engine konks. Most midair’s your just plain fooked.
 
luvflyin said:
Running afoul of weather is self inflicted. Running out of gas is self inflicted. You can still fly the plane when the engine konks. Most midair’s your just plain fooked.
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Baloney, partly baloney, and semi baloney. First, weather does what it wants when it wants to do it. You can have the best forecast in the world and the stuff can creep up on you. If it hasn't happened to you you've not been flying long.

Some aircraft have complex fuel systems that can fool you into thinking you're dry when you aren't. In a perfect world it would never happen, but the world isn't perfect. Leaks, engine trouble, or just forgetting to adjust the prop can cast you lots of gas, though there are plenty who do indeed wind up in dutch because they tried to press it.

If the mill takes a dump you can only fly as far as your energy goes, and your energy might not get you anywhere safe in lots of instances.

Yes, you are in dire shape if you have a midair, but like I said, they're rare as hen's teeth. Yet from reading stuff on the internet I'd say you all obsess over them.
 
No transponder or ADSB out. I know you can do it without but the handheld radio is no super star either even with the external antenna. Some day when I.am wealthy like you guys...
 
steingar said:
Baloney, partly baloney, and semi baloney. First, weather does what it wants when it wants to do it. You can have the best forecast in the world and the stuff can creep up on you. If it hasn't happened to you you've not been flying long.

Some aircraft have complex fuel systems that can fool you into thinking you're dry when you aren't. In a perfect world it would never happen, but the world isn't perfect. Leaks, engine trouble, or just forgetting to adjust the prop can cast you lots of gas, though there are plenty who do indeed wind up in dutch because they tried to press it.

If the mill takes a dump you can only fly as far as your energy goes, and your energy might not get you anywhere safe in lots of instances.

Yes, you are in dire shape if you have a midair, but like I said, they're rare as hen's teeth. Yet from reading stuff on the internet I'd say you all obsess over them.
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Good points.
 
luvflyin said:
Good points
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Not really, at least the part about mid airs, every one flying should be worried and vigilant.

We have a whole system, with literally at least dozens of procedures specifically designed to keep airplanes from colliding. It is drilled into our heads early in training to keep your head on a swivel to watch for traffic. We are told during training to watch for traffic in high density areas like VORs, patterns, near airports. We have radar specifically designed for keeping aircraft separated. We have controllers whose job is mainly directing traffic flow to keep airplanes from colliding with each other. Millions, if not billions have been spent on ADSb bring us in airplane systems to notify, warn and keep track of other airplanes so we don't run into each other.

I fly in Massachusetts out of a busy delta. Every flight I get traffic called out to look for. Every flight I see traffic fly by within a few miles. Every couple flights I have to change direction to avoid traffic. I've had several instances where if I hadn't made a turn there would have been a collision.

One instance, less than a year ago, I was near a vor, not over it I don't do that unless I need to but a few miles from it. It doesn't matter how it happened, it did, I was travelling SW at 4,500, he was travelling NW at 4,500. I didn't see him (or her) out of my left windshield until we were less than a mile apart and we were closing fast. It was too late for a turn, so I dove. He passed about 50 or 100 feet above me, we would have collided. Technically I had the ROW, but it didn't matter, the other airplane continued on, no turn, no altitude change, he had no idea how close he came.

Another time I was on a practice instrument approach in Maine, I was on the final approach fix, about five miles from the airport and was watching someone maneuvering off to the right. I called that I was on a five mile final, flying a practice instrument approach, he calls with his position, then turns on an intersecting course, same altitude. I gave it about 30 seconds, then called, said I was leaving the approach for traffic (him), made a 90 degree turn, let him go by, then rejoined the approach. I'm not sure what his deal was, probably a student, but he had the right of way so it was fine.

Finally, what really convinced me that thinking it's a big sky out there is a stupid thing happened years ago in my primary training, all we had was eyeballs back then. It was probably my first call to a control tower, my instructor had primed me on what to say and I screwed it up, badly. He took over the call, them proceeded to dress me down like he never had before. As he was spewing, I realized he wasn't looking for traffic in a busy area, he was writing crap down for me to look at. I tuned him out and started scanning, sure enough I see a little dot in the distance not moving. He was really on a roll, so I smacked him in the chest and said "Traffic, traffic, traffic!" while pointing at it. He looked, saw it, said "My controls" and banked us at least 60 degrees. The Mooney zipped by my window close enough I could tell what the pilot was wearing. He was looking straight ahead, never saw us. After we were turned back to the airport, my instructor told me seeing that traffic had more than made up for my gaffe on the radio. I told him good, don't ever f'ng talk to me like that again. We both laughed, he was a good instructor.

Don't be that guy tooling along oblivious. The system works much better when everyone is aware.
 
PaulS said:
Not really, at least the part about mid airs, every one flying should be worried and vigilant.

We have a whole system, with literally at least dozens of procedures specifically designed to keep airplanes from colliding. It is drilled into our heads early in training to keep your head on a swivel to watch for traffic. We are told during training to watch for traffic in high density areas like VORs, patterns, near airports. We have radar specifically designed for keeping aircraft separated. We have controllers whose job is mainly directing traffic flow to keep airplanes from colliding with each other. Millions, if not billions have been spent on ADSb bring us in airplane systems to notify, warn and keep track of other airplanes so we don't run into each other.

I fly in Massachusetts out of a busy delta. Every flight I get traffic called out to look for. Every flight I see traffic fly by within a few miles. Every couple flights I have to change direction to avoid traffic. I've had several instances where if I hadn't made a turn there would have been a collision.

One instance, less than a year ago, I was near a vor, not over it I don't do that unless I need to but a few miles from it. It doesn't matter how it happened, it did, I was travelling SW at 4,500, he was travelling NW at 4,500. I didn't see him (or her) out of my left windshield until we were less than a mile apart and we were closing fast. It was too late for a turn, so I dove. He passed about 50 or 100 feet above me, we would have collided. Technically I had the ROW, but it didn't matter, the other airplane continued on, no turn, no altitude change, he had no idea how close he came.

Another time I was on a practice instrument approach in Maine, I was on the final approach fix, about five miles from the airport and was watching someone maneuvering off to the right. I called that I was on a five mile final, flying a practice instrument approach, he calls with his position, then turns on an intersecting course, same altitude. I gave it about 30 seconds, then called, said I was leaving the approach for traffic (him), made a 90 degree turn, let him go by, then rejoined the approach. I'm not sure what his deal was, probably a student, but he had the right of way so it was fine.

Finally, what really convinced me that thinking it's a big sky out there is a stupid thing happened years ago in my primary training, all we had was eyeballs back then. It was probably my first call to a control tower, my instructor had primed me on what to say and I screwed it up, badly. He took over the call, them proceeded to dress me down like he never had before. As he was spewing, I realized he wasn't looking for traffic in a busy area, he was writing crap down for me to look at. I tuned him out and started scanning, sure enough I see a little dot in the distance not moving. He was really on a roll, so I smacked him in the chest and said "Traffic, traffic, traffic!" while pointing at it. He looked, saw it, said "My controls" and banked us at least 60 degrees. The Mooney zipped by my window close enough I could tell what the pilot was wearing. He was looking straight ahead, never saw us. After we were turned back to the airport, my instructor told me seeing that traffic had more than made up for my gaffe on the radio. I told him good, don't ever f'ng talk to me like that again. We both laughed, he was a good instructor.

Don't be that guy tooling along oblivious. The system works much better when everyone is aware.
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Good points
 
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