Re knowing the frequency to call,in practice(real life ) you are always given the next freq to call by the ATC making the handoff.A pilot starting out from a non-radio /uncontrolled field would have ascertained the contact freq he should call on prior to take off.In Europe and UK,in practice,virtually all VFR flights if they are radio equipped maintain radio contact with the Flight Information Region (FIR) they are in(similar to Flight Following in USA).Dave

>Low Altitude Airways Charts usually show the Sector and the>Freq.Of course. Bt it turns out Brian was asking about VFR flight. VFR pilot would typically not carry or care about Low Altitude charts.Michael J.

i was looking at a digital sectional chart i had for the boise, idaho area and found some airspace around an airport and i couldnt find any atc freq. except for the airport and vor, etc.ciao!Brian S

It should be there unless this is some sort of military, prohibited airspace. I suspect it must be a "C" class airspace around Boise ? What boundary does it have - blue or magenta line, broken or solid ? It is also possible you need a magnified VFR chart for the area (they are usually called Terminal or TCA charts..) and then all the frequencies should be there. If not diectly on the map they should be list of frequencies on the side. But you do need to understand symbology to first identify type of the airspace.Michael J.

There should be an atis freq. listed for kboi. For a vfr flight like this you would dial that in-and in the atis there would be something like "all arriving traffic contact approach on xxx.xx". That is how you would find out what frequency to use. Sometimes if busy-they might even have a freq. for north/south-listening to the atis would tell you this.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

>but in>real life you cant do this, so what chart or whatever do you>r/w pilots use to look up to know who to contact next?>thanksThe Airport/Facility Directory (published by the FAA) works for me. Usually I try to find the correct sector freq on the VFR sectional chart first, then turn to the A/FD if I can't figure it out from the chart. The A/FD lists all approach/center freqs for each airport, but it's a little hard to figure out sometimes. A lot of VFR pilots swear by the "Pilot's Guide" books, but I'm too cheap/lazy to buy one--easier just to get Sporty's to mail me an A/FD with my IFR charts and procedures every time the FAA updates them. They're cheap, too--around $5.Anyway, the A/FD, for me, is a second resort when I'm in the air. Usually I try to do a little better flight planning on the ground so I don't have to fumble around for freqs. If, for instance, I know I'm going to want VFR flight following and I don't know the correct freq to use when tower releases me, I make a call to Flight Service before I take off and ask them what freq to use. If I didn't mind that the tower controller might think I'm a sketchy pilot, I'd just ask him or her if I hadn't figured out the correct freq by then. Of course, neither of those techniques works in MSFS COF ... but that's what I do in the real world.Rob Pratt

>flight like this you would dial that in-and in the atis there>would be something like "all arriving traffic contact approach>on xxx.xx".GeofA is correct. Forgot about this one.Michael J.

I saw a quick reply about getting a new ATC squawk, and that you keep the one you're originally given. Actually, it all depends, sometimes you keep the same code, sometimes, as you're given to a new controller, he may issue you a new code. Hence, that's why human controllers (and why VATSIM is so great sometimes) is that you never know what you're going to get. The other day, we were given a clearance to FL200, then told to stop the climb at 14000. I heard the controller working another aircraft, so I knew he was keeping us lower because of traffic. When I finally told the controller that I saw the traffic, he gave me a climb up to FL200, just stay clear of the traffic. That's the best thing about human controllers v. FS ATC (even Radar Contact 3) is the randomness sometimes.

Check this out On a flight from say San Carlos California (SQL) to Oakland Intl (OAK) you would use:1)SQL Atis2)SQL Ground 3)SQL Tower4)Oak Atis5)Sierra Approach6)OAK South Tower7)OAK North Tower, (for most GA)8)OAK GroundTotal flight time, approximatly 10/15mins wheels up to wheels down.Thats a lot of talking and button flipping. Now for the return trip you can also throw in contacting center for clearence out of class C airspace.Thats even for a VFR flight, but thats an extreme. You can fly around San Francisco Bay fairly well with out talking to anyone if you pay attention to your charts. However in this day and age I feel better talking to ATC if Im flying near anything remotely sensitive(ie:Bridges, Nuke Faculties and such) I dont want 18yoCapt Kill-em-all in his F18 to get twitchy cuz I didnt feel like chatting with the controller.

:-beerchug :-beerchugIf you fly SQL to OAK then maybe you could give me a lift (4 times a week ?) - this is an approximate route of my daily commute. But I would actually prefer NUQ-OAK !!!Michael J.

I'll add my 2 cents,The short answer is that MSFS makes you change frequencies WAY more often then the real-world. In reality, if an aircraft is just going to travel a short distance in another controller's airspace, I'll call that controller and issue a "point-out". A point-out is similar to a hand-off in that the other controller will watch the airplane and separate his traffic from it; but he'll never talk to the airplane. Flight Simulator isn't this "smart" yet, so it switches you regardless. As an aside, many pilots mistakenly think that the hand-off occurs when they are issued a frequency change. Actually, the hand-off is made internally without the pilot's knowledge (through an automated "flash" or verbal coordination on the land-line) before he is switched to the next controller. Another poster noted that freq changes occur less often early in the morning or late at night - that's because during light traffic periods, we combine sectors to one controller so the rest of us can go to the break-room and play on the X-BOX ;-). When one controller is working several sectors, he'll typically leave you on the same frequency until you're handed-off to a sector that he's not working.Squawk code changes are given for a variety of reasons. The main reason is when you fly into a different center's airspace... each center has a separate host computer that assigns codes to all airplanes within the confines of its airspace (including approach controls). When an aircraft crosses a center boundary, the computers try to negotiate the same code as the flight-plan information is transferred. But if the receiving host has already issued that code to another airplane, it will generate a code-change. Unlike a previous poster, I have never experienced a code-change when flying IFR in Flight Simulator.If anybody has any other ATC questions, I'll be hanging out here tonight between flying sessions.Regards,Marc

Great comments Marc !Michael J.

I used to commute from San Francisco to Palo Alto Airport by car everyday. I tried to commute buy flying but could never get the catapult on the roof of my apartment to launch that Cessna 150 just right.