Wireless

Anthony J. Gabrielson agabriel at coe.neu.edu
Wed Jul 21 14:23:01 EDT 1999


Hello,
	Not to be rude but theres a reason why they have flight plans.
First off its required for at least a few cross countries when in
training - and you need to be sighned off just to look at a plane without 
a instructor before your ticketed, second its stressed that you not open
the flight plan until you're in the air - clsed on the ground. Its a free
service to the pilot thats often overlooked "I don't need that its only
an hour flight".  The vineyard is a hazy place at night/day he grew up
there - he should have knowen that, another reason to file a plan.  If he
was doing a quick buzz up to say hanscom, it would have been different -
hanscom is knowen for releiable weather.  How many times have you made a
"quick cross country" and the weather is different when you get there.  I
was going into laconia once - when I left Beverly the weather was great no
ceiling or anything, when I got to laconia it was snowing - thats anot
even an hour anound half an hour.  Conditions change often quickly.  There
are old pilots, there are bold pilots - why is it yo unever see any old
bild pilots?


ANthony

On 21 Jul 1999, Derek Atkins wrote:

> "Anthony J. Gabrielson" <agabriel at coe.neu.edu> writes:
> 
> > that. If john was smart he would have held off to till the morning - their
> > are often bad flight conditions during the day and at night at the
> > vineyard and nantucket, during the day he would at least be in situation
> > he knew with light instead of darkness.  John had very few hours and had
> > no business making that flight at the time he did, at the very least he
> > should have filed a flight plan with the FAA.  
> 
> I agree that John was out of his league flying on Friday night.  I
> happened to come in on a commercial flight that afternoon, and even below
> 10000' decending into Logan I couldn't see the ground due to all the
> haze.  I've got over 250 flight hours and an Intrument Rating, and I
> *still* wouldn't have flown VFR in those conditions, especially at
> night.
> 
> As for filing a flight plan -- there is no rule that requires a VFR
> flight plan.  It is only a recommendation.  While many pilots do
> choose to file them, many do not.  I wish people would stop harping on
> "they didn't file a flight plan."  That alone has very little bearance
> on the capabilities of the pilot.  Honestly, the majority of all GA
> flights in the country are flying without flight plans.  Only
> commercial and IFR traffic require them, and not many VFR pilots use
> the services.
> 
> I, personally, don't file flight plans on short VFR flights.  Even
> when I fly out to the Vinyard or Nantucket, or up to Vermont or Maine,
> I don't file a VFR flight plan.  On the other hand, I _ALWAYS_ use
> Visual Flight Following and stay in contact with ATC as much as
> possible.  I consider this a better option, as I know there is someone
> listening to me if I have a problem.
> 
> -derek
> 
> -- 
>        Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
>        Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
>        URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
>        warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available
> 

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