I was wondering if anyone with ATC could help me out with the following.

When I CLOSE my IFR flight plan with centre (when in uncontrolled airspace), the following conversation takes place:

Me: "I would like to close my IFR and proceed on company itinerary"
ATC: "Flight plan is now closed, ATS alerting serives teminated, cleared enroute"

I know that my flight plan is now closed and I don't have to file an arrival report once at my destination. This is all good.

However, when I am in controlled airspace and I CANCEL IFR, why does the following happen:

Me: "I would like to cancel IFR at this time and proceed VFR to destination"
ATC: "Check you are cancelling IFR and confirm you are proceeding on a company itinerary?"

So WHY does ATC ask me if I am on a company itinerary if when I cancel my IFR. Isn't my flight plan still open and now VFR

FR

There are essentially 2 parts to your flight plan when you file with NC, the first part is the flight Rules either VFR where you navigate yourself or IFR where a controller provides seperation. Then there is the flight following portion where either the center or an FSS provides alerting. Now you want to cancel you have one of two options, to cancel just the flight rules portion. Then there is canceling the flight rules portion and the flight following.

If you close both you don;t have to worry about sending any arrival report or if your landing at an FSS or tower they are not required to send an arrival report on your behalf. In FSS if you are inbound to our airport and you cancel IFR and you don't mention closing your flight plan , we are required to ask you.

Now while inbound to my FSS and you call me up for your advisory and you want us to call in and cancell the IFR for you we'll ask if your going company itin. Now if you want to keep the alerting we have to make 2 calls one to cancel the flight rules and then another once your down to close the flight following. If you cancel and go company itin we just make one call to the controller and close the whole shebang.

We ask becasue it is part of our Manops (SOP's) and we are required to. Hope that helps!

The way we see it as ATC is that if you're closing your plan - we are no longer responsible for alerting. We take your strip off our board and assume that your company will make sure that you arrive safely.

If you cancel IFR and keep your flight plan open, we no longer provide separation for you, but we keep your strip active and provide alerting. This means that if we don't get an arrival call from the FSS or from you if you're at an uncontrolled airport - we have to begin a search at the 30 minute mark (which happens quite often I might add).

Our MANOPS says that we are to ask you, when you cancel IFR, if you are also closing the flight plan. In reality, at our centre at least, we only ask this if you are going to an airport where there is no FSS. I guess it's to make sure that there is no ambiguity as to who is providing alterting services for you.

It gets even more complicated if you have filed a composite flight plan. If you've filed IFR for part of the flight, then VFR for the rest. In this case, your flight plan is opened with the centre and the FIC. So even if you close your flight plan with ATC, it still remains open at the FIC and they will await your arrival report. We had this this past summer. An aircraft cancelled and closed IFR, and they had filed a composite fligth plan. ATC considered it closed, but the pilot hadn't closed out the VFR portion of the flight plan, only the IFR portion. The FIC was holding alerting on the aircraft and started a search for the aircraft.

I think it depends on which FIR you are in too. The Edmonton FIR just revised the inter-unit Edmonton ACC/Edmonton FIR FSS agreement. Scenario 1. Effective Sept. 15, when an aircraft has cancelled IFR with FSS, the FSS will call ACC and advise aircraft has cancelled IFR. Then the FSS shall assume responsibility for alerting. FSS will not have to call the ACC with an arrival time. If the aircraft fails to arrive within 5 minutes of the ETA, hovever and the FSS cannot establish communications, the FSS will immediatly inform the ACC.
Senario 2. If the aircraft cancels IFR and closes the IFR flight plan, the FSS will call the ACC and advise the aircraft has closed it IFR flight plan, and this terminates the IFR alerting service. FSS will not have to call the ACC with an arrival time, but this does not preclude the FSS MANOPS alerting service in ensuring the aircraft lands safely at the airport.

This part is still not clear to me. If I am approaching my airport and decide to cancel IFR but not close my flight plan, and then land at:

1) A controlled airport: Does my VFR flight plan get closed automatically by tower even though it is now a VFR Flight Plan? If so, can I count on it or is it at their option. If not, who do I call to close my flight plan? Flight Services? The last time I called they didn't even know I existed?

2) Uncontrolled Airport: Similar question, obviously I have to call someone, but who?

szakreski wrote: If I am approaching my airport and decide to cancel IFR but not close my flight plan, and then land at:

1) A controlled airport: Does my VFR flight plan get closed automatically by tower even though it is now a VFR Flight Plan? If so, can I count on it or is it at their option. If not, who do I call to close my flight plan? Flight Services? The last time I called they didn't even know I existed?

2) Uncontrolled Airport: Similar question, obviously I have to call someone, but who?

The tower or FSS advisory site (including RAAS) will contact the centre to close your FlightPlan after your arrival.

If you land at an airport without a Tower or FSS then you will need to call a 1-888 number for the Centre to close your Flightplan. The controller will often ask you if you have the phone number after you cancel. If you call the FIC after landing they can also send an arrival message to the centre with the same effect.

Szakreski:

This part is still not clear to me. If I am approaching my airport and decide to cancel IFR but not close my flight plan, and then land at:
1) A controlled airport: Does my VFR flight plan get closed automatically by tower even though it is now a VFR Flight Plan?

I think your confusion arises from this: once you cancel IFR you are still on an IFR flight plan. It does not change to a VFR flight plan just because you are now proceeding to your destination under VFR rules. The controller doesn't worry about you anymore because his job is to provide IFR separation which you no longer need though he may monitor your flight a bit further if he sees a potential conflict. At this point you are being flight followed by the ACC flight data people. If you land at an airport serviced by ATS, they will forward the arrival report automatically. If you are talking on an RCO ensure you DO report down, otherwise 5 minutes after the ETA if they are unable to establish communications they will advise the ACC and a commsearch ensues. At an uncontrolled airport it is the pilot's responsibility to contact the ACC and advise them of the arrival so that the flight plan will be closed otherwise it's 30 minutes and without further info the commsearch ensues. You can also contact the nearest FIC and they will pass along the arrival for you.

It's a standard requirement to ask about the flight plan if you only advise cancelling IFR. The standard phraseology for FSS is, "Roger cancelling IFR, are you also closing your flight plan (or flight itinerary)?."

FullReverse wrote:However, when I am in controlled airspace and I CANCEL IFR, why does the following happen:

Me: "I would like to cancel IFR at this time and proceed VFR to destination"
ATC: "Check you are cancelling IFR and confirm you are proceeding on a company itinerary?"

So WHY does ATC ask me if I am on a company itinerary if when I cancel my IFR. Isn't my flight plan still open and now VFR

FR

I'm a controller, so the Flight Service types can correct me here, but I seem to recall a requirement that if you are VFR, you must have either a VFR flight plan or be on a flight itinerary if your destination is more than 25 NM.

If you cancel IFR more than 25 miles from destination the IFR controller would most probably not wish to put you in a position where you were "illegal". This may be the reason he was trying to confirm you were on a company intinerary so he didn't have to deal with the extra calls to the back room to handle a VFR flight plan.

Lexx
http://www.ykf.ca

lexx wrote:

FullReverse wrote:However, when I am in controlled airspace and I CANCEL IFR, why does the following happen:

Me: "I would like to cancel IFR at this time and proceed VFR to destination"
ATC: "Check you are cancelling IFR and confirm you are proceeding on a company itinerary?"

So WHY does ATC ask me if I am on a company itinerary if when I cancel my IFR. Isn't my flight plan still open and now VFR

FR

I'm a controller, so the Flight Service types can correct me here, but I seem to recall a requirement that if you are VFR, you must have either a VFR flight plan or be on a flight itinerary if your destination is more than 25 NM.

If you cancel IFR more than 25 miles from destination the IFR controller would most probably not wish to put you in a position where you were "illegal". This may be the reason he was trying to confirm you were on a company intinerary so he didn't have to deal with the extra calls to the back room to handle a VFR flight plan.

Lexx
http://www.ykf.ca

If someone is coming into my airport and they cancel and go company itin, they must contact there company and advise them of there ETA so they can have some form of alerting. SO yes your correct. Also if your withing 25nm of an FSS the FSS is required to start looking for you if you do not arrive withing 5 minutes of your ETA.

So if you call me up, cacel and close and give me an ETA regardless if your 5 minutes or 20 minutes out and you do not arrive within 5 minutes of your ETA i will start to call and if necessary initiate a comm search regardless of who you are filed with.

My two bits, if you cancel IFR we no longer provide an IFR control service. However we must still provide an alerting service until you advise otherwise.

hydro wrote:

szakreski wrote: If I am approaching my airport and decide to cancel IFR but not close my flight plan, and then land at:

1) A controlled airport: Does my VFR flight plan get closed automatically by tower even though it is now a VFR Flight Plan? If so, can I count on it or is it at their option. If not, who do I call to close my flight plan? Flight Services? The last time I called they didn't even know I existed?

2) Uncontrolled Airport: Similar question, obviously I have to call someone, but who?

The tower or FSS advisory site (including RAAS) will contact the centre to close your FlightPlan after your arrival.

If you land at an airport without a Tower or FSS then you will need to call a 1-888 number for the Centre to close your Flightplan. The controller will often ask you if you have the phone number after you cancel. If you call the FIC after landing they can also send an arrival message to the centre with the same effect.

I don't know what kind of system you guys run, but we never pass arrival times for VFR aircraft, even if they were on an IFR flight plan.

We often get aircraft in that have canceled IFR and we deal with them as any other VFR aircraft, some times completely oblivious that they were ever IFR even. The airport I work at has exceeds and there is an automatic flight plan closing program, so you don't have to close it yourself. The previous airport I worked at didn't have exceeds. If you asked us to close a flight plan, we were required to, but we expected you to close it otherwise.

Your best bet is to ask the unit (fss/tower) if it has been closed if you're unfamiliar with the operation at that airport. If they say no, then call 1-866-wxbrief, or dial up radio. I tend to frown on having tower do it unless its obviously slow as it takes a controller out of position and over to the fax machine with his head down, or trying to place a phone call, rather than seperating aircraft.