January 28, 201115 yr I've been really trying to treat the flight sim as real life as much as possible, I find I'm enjoying it a lot more, it "feels" more "real" when I take it seriously.but I do wonder, do real pilots always file a flight plan, etc even if they do some local sightseeing? or even say from a to b airport? I think us flightsimmers just hop in and go way to much, but maybe this is more realistic then what I think it is.oh, I should mention, I'm talking GA flying here, not charter/airliner type of flying... Ciao!
January 28, 201115 yr All the time. If I'm local there's no flight plan. Especially when in the J-3. Quick check for TFRs, etc. and I'm off! ___________________________________________________________________________________ Zachary Waddell -- Caravan Driver -- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/zwaddell Avsim ToS Avsim Screenshot Rules
January 28, 201115 yr I would say it is typical not to file a VFR Flight Plan and that typically a VFR Flight Plan is not required (one notable exception is flight into an ADIZ).Personally, I was like Zach too... local flight -> no flight plan. But then the place I was flying for knew I was local, and roughly when I would be back.Cross-country was different; I was in the habit of filing a VFR Flight Plan from the school I attended... So it was no big deal to call Flight Service, get a Wx Brief and file. The VFR Flight Plan mainly provides the service of letting someone know where you are, where you are going and when you expect to be there.You need to call Flight Service within 30min after your ETA to close (or deactivate) it, else the "phones will start ringing" i.e. Flight Service initiates the search procedure.
January 28, 201115 yr but I do wonder, do real pilots always file a flight plan, etc even if they do some local sightseeing? Back in a previous life I was dating the daughter of an active, private pilot who lived in an aviation community. Many times we'd just do a preflight on the machine, jump in the Ercoupe, and go. (My avatar << is from that era, getting some passenger seat time in that airplane). He'd file his "flight plan" with his wife and daughter ("We're going to go out and fly around - maybe to Sanford or Freiburg"), and we'd head on out... waving to all the other lucky souls who lived up there watching airplanes all day. I don't think any of them filed plans for their local jaunts... Even when we took an extended flight from their house out to my family's place (a ~100mi cross-country), we didn't file any plans... Looking back, I'd have loved to spend some time planning the trip a bit more than grabbing a sectional and plugging the destination ICAO into the GPS, but we were heading out over relatively familiar territory. -Greg
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