Simviation Forums

I've got a few questions that have been nagging in my head for some time now:

Suppose I am a pilot. And I want to take my aircraft from let's say Amsterdam to New York. I have to file a flightplan, probably IFR. So far I can understand it. But I am not an airline company so the flight is unscheduled. How does New York know that I am coming that way when I file my flightplan in Amsterdam? How does any flightplan work? How does a controller know which way I have to go when I am handed over to them?

Crash

I am pretty sure that most modern countries, and even some not so modern, that allow free movement of aircraft between the two share info.  Much like the way MIA Center can pull up info entered at NY.

You file a flight plan with your departure point and destination, as well as a few other things (link), and once it's filed, after a short period of time, it is in the computer systems of the controllers, so once you take off, or before you take off, you contact your nearest approach or center controller, and they issue your clearance based on your flight plan.  Once that is done, they expect you to fly the plan as you have filed it, or, if they have changed it, as they requested.  When you file IFR, you are usually in contact with a controller for most of the time, so they always have a pretty good idea of where you are.  However, if you don't file a flight plan, you can still call up an approach controller while you're outside of their airspace, and request clearance into their airspace, and usually, they'll give it to you, unless they're very busy or something.  Once you establish contact with them, they'll sometimes give you directions on where to fly, so they'll know you are.

So, to sum it up, they often times know you're coming because you said so in your flight plan, but if you don't have a flight plan, they might not know you're coming until you're 20 or 30 miles away from them.

That was very poorly written, but I hope you understood, even with my extreme comma usage tonight, here, now, so goodnight.

Mobius covered it pretty well. An IFR flight plan is your reservation in the sky AND at your destination. You file it ahead of time and then, when ready for departure, you request your clearance. If that's at a large airport, there's a special channel called 'clearance delivery'. At smaller, controlled airports you'll normally get your clearance on the ground channel. At uncontrolled fields, if able, you'd contact the nearest approach control, or ATC center... or call Flight Service on a phone...

Thanks for your clear answers. I've got the idea how it works now.

Crash

Coming into the US from over the ocean also usually requires an ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) clearance as well. Not sure how this works for transcontinental flights. But if you want to take a short hop from the Bahamas to Florida, you'll need an ADIZ flight plan to get back in. Also, you'll need to land at an Airport of Entry to be inspected by customs. There may be some other things that I'm missing, I personally haven't flown outside the country. Washington D.C. does have an ADIZ around it now and I've been though that. It's not a terribly big deal. You just need to have the ADIZ flight plan filed coming in and recieve clearance to enter the ADIZ from the controller before you fly into it. Taking off from inside the ADIZ requires that you obtain a squawk code from the controllers prior to takeoff as well.

I think filing IFR takes care of the ADIZ, around Washington at least.  But don't quote me on that or actually trust me!  I just thought I heard that somewhere...

I don't know either. I only went in and out once and I was VFR. I filed a VFR flight plan but I had to file an additional ADIZ flight plan as well.