VFR Flight Plan vs Flight Following: Do You Need Both?

A VFR flight plan and flight following do different jobs, and neither one does the other's. A flight plan is a record filed with Flight Service that starts a search if you do not arrive. Flight following is radar traffic advisories from an air traffic controller while you are airborne. Inside the continental United States a VFR flight plan is not normally required (AIM 5-1-5 a), and flight following is a service a controller may provide or decline (AIM 4-1-15 b). You can carry both on the same flight, and on some flights you should.

The confusion runs one way. A pilot talking to Approach feels watched, so the flight plan feels redundant. It is not, for a reason that sits in the AIM's search-and-rescue chapter, not its radar chapter.

What a VFR flight plan does

A VFR flight plan is a filed record of who you are, where you are going and when you expect to get there. Its purpose is search and rescue. 14 CFR 91.153(a) lists nine items it must contain. Aircraft identification and type. The pilot in command's full name and address. Departure point and proposed time; route, cruising altitude and true airspeed; the point of first intended landing and the estimated time en route to it; fuel on board in hours; the number of persons aboard; and anything else the pilot or ATC thinks necessary. Each one tells a searcher what to look for, where, and for how long.

The AIM calls a filed flight plan "the most timely and effective indicator that an aircraft is overdue" (AIM 6-2-6 f). The same paragraph cites an Air Force review of 325 search missions over 23 months: for pilots not on a flight plan, about 36 hours normally passed before family concern started an alert. On a flight plan, the clock is 30 minutes after your ETA (AIM 5-1-14).

Three mechanics matter. A filed plan does nothing until it is activated, and control towers do not activate VFR flight plans (AIM 5-1-5 a). An unactivated proposal is held about two hours after the proposed departure time, then dropped (AIM 5-1-5 d). And the AIM says to file only to the point of first intended landing and refile for each leg, because on a long multi-stop plan a mishap on leg one might not start a search until 30 minutes after the ETA at the final stop (AIM 6-2-6 g).

What flight following gives you

Flight following is the AIM's Radar Traffic Information Service: a radar facility tells you about targets that may pass close enough to your position or route to warrant attention (AIM 4-1-15). The same paragraph says the service is not intended to relieve you of the responsibility to see and avoid, and that radar does not show a target's altitude unless that aircraft has Mode C.

Where terminal radar is commissioned, the basic radar service for VFR aircraft is a little wider: safety alerts, traffic advisories, limited vectoring on a workload-permitting basis, and sequencing where a procedure exists (AIM 4-1-18 a). A safety alert is the one that earns the frequency: a controller who sees you at an altitude that, in their judgment, puts you in unsafe proximity to terrain, obstructions or other aircraft will say so (AIM 4-1-16).

There is a search-and-rescue angle too, but a narrower one. Radar facilities treat the loss of both radar and radio contact, without a termination notice, as a possible emergency, and SAR may begin on that basis (AIM 6-2-6 f). That covers you while you are on frequency. It covers nothing before you called and nothing after the controller says radar service is terminated.

How do you request flight following?

Call the approach control or center for your area with your call sign, type, position, altitude, destination and the request, which are the items the AIM lists for aircraft transiting a terminal area (AIM 4-1-18 a). The initial call follows AIM 4-2-3: facility name, full aircraft identification, and the request if it is short. Facility names come from AIM TBL 4-2-6, "Oklahoma City Approach" or "Washington Center". The AIM does not script the words "flight following". It uses the term itself, though: AIM 6-2-6 f says "radar flight following". A composed example, with a placeholder tail number:

Oklahoma City Approach, Skyhawk one two three alpha bravo, request.
Skyhawk one two three alpha bravo, one five miles south of Guthrie, five thousand five hundred, VFR to Wichita, request flight following.

Keep the first call short when the frequency is busy. If you are a student pilot, say so on the initial call; the AIM recommends it, and controllers will give extra consideration (AIM 4-2-4 c). Departing a towered field, ask ground control or clearance delivery on initial contact and give your proposed direction of flight (AIM 4-1-18 a).

Once you have it, monitor the frequency at all times and tell the controller before you change VFR cruising altitude. When you no longer want the service, advise the controller before changing frequency, then set the transponder to 1200 (AIM 4-1-15 b; AIM 4-1-20). Do not just leave. A silent departure from the frequency is how a routine flight becomes a possible emergency on someone's scope.

What ATC can and cannot do for you

What you get is advice, when workload allows, and the AIM is blunt about both halves.

ATC can call traffic by clock position, distance, direction of travel, and type and altitude if known (AIM 4-1-15 c). It can issue safety alerts. It can give you vectors if you ask, or suggest one and proceed if you agree (AIM 4-1-17). Terrain alerts come from the Minimum Safe Altitude Warning function, and a VFR aircraft gets MSAW monitoring only if the pilot requests it (AIM 4-1-16 a).

ATC does not separate you. Standard radar separation between VFR aircraft, or between VFR and IFR aircraft, is not provided under basic radar service (AIM 4-1-18 a). Advisory service does not include vectors away from traffic unless you request them (AIM 4-1-15 b). The controller has complete discretion to provide or stop the service, and the reason "is not subject to question nor need it be communicated to the pilot". Workload, frequency congestion and radar limits are all legitimate reasons. Being dropped is normal, not personal.

Two more limits deserve a plain statement. A vector does not authorize you to violate any regulation; the guidance is advisory and flying the airplane remains your job (AIM 4-1-17 b). And the controller often cannot tell whether a heading will put you in cloud, so the AIM asks you to keep ATC advised of the weather you are in and the weather ahead (AIM 4-1-17 c). The scope shows targets, not ceilings; the numbers on what happens next are in VFR into IMC.

How to file, activate and close a VFR flight plan

File through 1800wxbrief.com, by phone at 1-800-WX-BRIEF (1-800-992-7433), or through a flight planning app that files for you; the AIM lists all three (AIM 5-1-1 a). The form is FAA Form 7233-4, the international format (AIM 5-1-5 b). Leidos Flight Service is free. It accepts a plan up to 27 days ahead (Leidos Flight Service FAQs).

Activate by radio with Flight Service, through the EasyActivate text or email link, from the website dashboard, or through the phone automation at 1-800-WX-BRIEF (Leidos FAQs). An assumed departure time also works. The plan activates itself at that time, and you are responsible for revising the departure time, time en route or ETA if they change (AIM 5-1-5 e).

En route, two reports. Pass a new ETA to the nearest FSS if your time en route changes by 30 minutes or more, and if you land somewhere else, report that too, with your original destination (AIM 6-2-6 g).

Then close it. 91.153(b) makes the pilot in command responsible for notifying an FSS or ATC facility on completing the flight, and the AIM adds that the plan is never closed automatically (AIM 6-2-6 g). Towers do not close VFR flight plans because they do not know you are on one. Any ATC facility will relay your cancellation to the FSS if you ask (AIM 5-1-14). Leidos lists the ways: EasyClose, the dashboard, phone automation, radio while airborne, or a specialist.

Which one for which flight?

Use flight following wherever radar and radio coverage make it available, and file a flight plan for any leg where a search would have to look for you; the AIM strongly recommends a VFR flight plan and says plainly to file one for your safety (AIM 5-1-5 b; AIM 6-2-6 f). The table is our recommendation, not a rule. The regulatory floor is thin: DVFR for an Air Defense Identification Zone and a filed, activated plan for an international destination (AIM 5-1-5 a).

The AIM also suggests listing surveillance equipment in Item 18 and any commercial GPS tracking service in Item 19, because radar history and tracker data help find a missing aircraft (AIM 5-1-5 j). If you fly with a tracker, fill in that line.

Where FlyFren fits into this

FlyFren is planning information. Its airport pages show current NOTAMs and weather for the fields on your route, and How to read NOTAMs covers the decode. FlyFren does not file flight plans, activate them, close them, or talk to ATC. Those happen with Flight Service, your EFB's filing service and the frequency, and the 30-minute clock in AIM 5-1-14 runs on them alone. Close the plan with Flight Service, by whichever route you filed it.

This article is educational and is not a substitute for the current regulations, the AIM, official weather briefings, or instruction from a CFI. Check the current text at the linked sources before you rely on any detail.