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VFR flight plan

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Student Pilot

Has this happened to anyone?  Does anyone have an answer as to why this happened.  A student pilot challenged me with this statement / question.  He was on a VFR cross country.  He filed a VFR Flight plan and was also using flight following.  He said that the cross country was taking longer than what he planned.  Instead of a 2 hr 20min flight it took him 2 hr 45min.  He said that when he arrived at his destination he contacted flight service to close his flight plan and flight service said they had already closed his flight plan for him because he went past his time.

 

He asked me what is the purpose of a VFR flight plan when flight Service will just close it anyways. I think flight service called the airport and found out he landed safely and therefore closed it.

 

any comments?

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1 Answers



  1. Kris Kortokrax on Feb 23, 2015

    Ask your student if he activated the VFR flight plan. It sounds as if he filed the flight plan, took off, contacted approach and requested “flight following” (VFR traffic advisories) and never bothered to contact FSS and activate the flight plan. He probably assumed that it had been activated when he contacted approach (not the case).

    The flight plan would be flushed (not closed, because it was never opened)
    from the system if it has not been activated within a certain amount of time after the proposed departure time.

    +3 Votes Thumb up 3 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes


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