How to activate ifr flight plan in the air?

You can “air file,” or file an IFR flight plan while en route. Ideally, this would involve calling up the nearest ATC frequency, stating your N number, and waiting for a controller to acknowledge your transmission. When that comes, go ahead and give a position report of sorts, stating that you’re VFR, giving your position and altitude, and adding “request” to your transmission. “Go ahead with your request,” will hopefully be the answer, and now you can tell the controller you’d like to file an IFR flight plan to your destination. But don’t get your hopes up.

One good strategy for quicker air filing is to establish contact with ATC, then request flight following (VFR advisories). Again, this service is given on a workload-permitting basis so there are no guarantees. But once ATC grants flight following, you’ll be spring-loaded to air file. ATC already has you identified, knows your altitude, and has been keeping track of your flight. ATC is more prepared than if you cold-called them.

So, ATC can, and does, file IFR flight plans on the fly, but it depends on the circumstances. These sorts of “pop-up” clearances are granted on a workload-permitting basis. Congested airspace and changing weather conditions may keep controllers so busy that they can’t easily take a time out from their existing duties to make room for copying your flight plan, entering it into the system, and issuing you your clearance. But if you’re far from dense traffic and assuming the fates are with you, the controller might come back with “go ahead with your flight plan.”

At this point you can go ahead with the flight plan sequence, stating the elements in the order they appear on the (non-ICAO, thankfully) flight plan form. After it’s acknowledged and you’re issued your clearance, you’re in the system. Congratulations, you lucked out this time. However, the awful truth is that the FAA would rather you not air file with ATC, except in extenuating circumstances, and take care of your flight plan filing using other means. (Of course, in an emergency you’re free to contact ATC or perform any other procedures you deem necessary to deal with the emergency and ensure the safe continuation of the flight—even if it means violating the FARs. This is covered in FAR 91.3.)

Ironically, one of those other means of IFR flight plan filing is…air filing. But using a flight service station’s advisory frequency, not ATC frequencies. These can be found on IFR low-altitude en route and VFR sectional charts. They’re published right above most of the boxes that enclose VOR identification, Morse code, and latitude/longitude information. On high-altitude IFR charts the information within the box is abbreviated, but the FSS frequency still appears above the box. The name of the nearest associated FSS in typically enclosed in brackets, beneath the VOR’s identification box. All that’s for government charts. Jeppesen charts use different conventions—like putting the FSS frequencies within the navaid identification box.

The most common FSS frequencies are 122.2, 122.4, and 122.6 MHz. Your callup should use the same standard mentioned earlier, only using the name of the nearest designated FSS. For example, you’d use “Saint Louis Radio” when near the Farmington, Missouri, VOR, because “Saint Louis” is in the brackets below the Farmington VOR’s identification box. Once communications are established, you dictate your flight plan, FSS copies it, sends it along to ATC, and gives you an ATC frequency to contact for activation and clearances.

While you’re at it, you might also obtain an FSS weather briefing for your route of flight. This can be a full-blown standard briefing or an abbreviated version, your choice. Because you have the luxury of time when talking over an FSS frequency, you can get a deeper dive into descriptions of convective and other weather that could affect the rest of your flight.

Sometimes you might see 122.1 MHz posted above the VOR identification box, along with the letter “R.” This means that FSS can receive you over 122.1 MHz. So, you broadcast on 122.1. To listen to FSS, you’ll have to dial up the volume and set up your com radio so you can listen to the VOR frequency. This is where FSS transmits to you. So, your com radio is tuned to 122.1 and your nav radio is tuned to the VOR frequency, with the ID or Voice function selected. Welcome to old-school procedures, held over from those times where transmitting and receiving on the same frequency weren’t possible when cruise altitudes were comparatively low, and distances from the station may have been too great.

For the callup on this split-frequency arrangement, you have to tell FSS the frequencies you’re using for transmitting and receiving. To use the Farmington VOR example, you’d say “Saint Louis radio, N12345, transmitting 122.1, listening Farmington VOR.”

After that, it can get a little chaotic. Other pilots may also be transmitting on 122.1, and you’ll hear the VOR’s Morse code behind the FSS briefer’s transmissions. It can get confusing. You may have to ask the briefer to “say again please.”

Are there any other ways to air file? If you have the systems—and can swing it financially—you could use a satellite phone to call an FSS for an in-person brief-and-file session. But this option seems to be only for high-rollers flying big iron.

This is a perfectly acceptable course of action as it does a couple of things:

Some pilots lack the maturity and professionalism to handle this option responsibly, though.

Picking up a clearance in the air is only a good option under two circumstances: good weather and good radio reception from Center or the FSS.

Before we keep going let me clarify what a “clearance” is exactly. At a towered airport you either call clearance delivery, or in the absence of clearance delivery you call ground, or in the absence of ground you call ground and you ask:

“Clearance, King Air 684BP, with information Bravo, going to Spokane.”

“King Air 684BP, Clearance, you are cleared to Spokane Airport via the Portland 1 Departure, then as filed, climb and maintain 3000 feet, contact departure on 124.35, squawk 4716.”

That is a clearance.

Once you have read back the full clearance then, and only then, are you are allowed to punch in the clouds.

I have heard of some pilots taking off and skirting just below the clouds trying to pick up their clearance.

You cannot punch into the clouds without a clearance!  Period. That is why getting your clearance on the ground is advantageous, you are cleared from the moment you take off to fly into the clouds.

That rule doesn’t apply when you pick up your clearance in the air. You are a VFR aircraft and you must maintain your VFR Cloud clearance until Center or FSS gives you your clearance.

Remember those requirements? (500 below, 1000 above and 2000 horizontal)

Once you get into Class E airspace at either 1200 feet above ground level (AGL) or 700 ft AGL you have to stay below the clouds by 500 feet.

Let’s do the math for a minute on this option.

Pretend the clouds are 1100’ at your departure airport. Let say that Class E airspace starts at 700’ AGL (which is typical at most airports).

You now have to fly 500’ below that 1100’ cloud deck as per Class E VFR cloud clearance requirement. Except you can’t actually enter Class E airspace because you can’t stay 500’ below the clouds. Which means you are actually flying in Class G airspace at 600’ AGL.

Now let’s say there is a 250’ hill in front of you because humans like to build airports in valleys and not on mountains.

Now you are flying 350’ above the ground trying to pick up your clearance.

Oh, and the clouds aren’t uniformly 1100’ AGL. They vary and they are dipping so now you are flying a couple hundred feet off the ground….and you still can’t get ATC because their radar and radio reception doesn’t go that low.

Do you see how this can turn into a stupid decision very quickly?

Some people cite their paying customers in the back as justification for not spending an extra minute or two on the ground. They would rather get moving towards their destination and pick up the clearance on the way.

I completely understand. But consider this: funerals cost more than avgas.

Paying customers in the back are no excuse for poor decision making.

Your boss can wait an extra 5 min while you pick up your clearance on the ground when the weather is marginal which brings me to my other point:

To use this option, you must know where ATC can hear you. It’s entirely feasible they can’t hear you at 3000’ especially out West.

So, if the cloud deck is at 2700’ then you can’t take off maintain VFR cloud clearance and talk to Center/FSS. You need to get it on the ground with a phone call.

This usually isn’t a problem out East; radar coverage and radio reception are pretty good. Out West, however, you need to really do the math. When ATC can’t pick you up with terrain rising up on either side of you with a low cloud deck, you are in trouble.

How to find out what radar coverage is like:

I wouldn’t worry about FSS being too busy to give you your clearance over the radio, but be careful with Center.

When Center is busy, call FSS first to get your clearance, THEN call Center and tell them where you are and your altitude.

But, if Center isn’t busy, call Center and you can kill two birds with one stone by getting your clearance and having them pick up control of you.

So now that we’ve gone through the basics, let’s explore a real-world scenario.

I fly out West most of the time. On this day our mission took us to John Day airport (KGCD) which is uncontrolled.

It also sits in a bowl surrounded by high terrain in the middle of Oregon. Here is the sectional for you to get some idea of the terrain:

As we descended into John Day, the controller said that he can’t see aircraft into John Day below 7000 ft MSL on his radar and they are hard to hear.  I didn’t have to prompt him for that info which is great. If he hadn’t told me I would have asked.

Knowing what altitude the radar and radio coverage ends is an invaluable piece of information, and you should make sure you get that cut off altitude before your switch over to CTAF and cancel IFR.

Here is where it got interesting. The cell phone and radio coverage were questionable on the ground which is your only option if radio reception is poor in the air.

We wanted to get the clearance on the ground because of the clouds, but we didn’t know if that was even an option.

We could have used the FBO phone and then ran out to the aircraft, but we were concerned about the timing. What if we called for the clearance and misjudged our passenger loading and run-up time? We would have to shut down, run in and make the call again if our cell phones didn’t work inside the plane.

The mountains to the east were covered in clouds, but the west looked pretty good. We knew the scattered clouds were at about 8-9000 feet based on looking at the heights of the surrounding mountains on the VFR sectional.

We discussed several courses of action:

We chose option 2. Because if you get a clearance before you take off you can punch in the clouds legally even if Center doesn’t have you on radar or can’t hear you just yet. Not so if you pick it up in the air.

The weather looked too sketchy to get our clearance in the air. We might not be able to maintain VFR cloud clearances (500 below). We might have been able to climb above the airport to 7000′ but it looked like the clouds were at 7000′. Plus it was getting dark.

We also tried, but couldn’t get FSS on the ground with the radio so we figured we wouldn’t be able to get center either.

Plus Center usually doesn’t clear you until they see you on radar and while you are waiting for Center you have to maintain VFR cloud clearances and fly at VFR altitude which was questionable in this case.

We had asked the FBO guys what the reception was like and they said it wasn’t great.

We tried anyway. The local guys were right. We had no luck.

Luckily the cell phone reception was good enough. So we called FSS over the phone while holding short of the active.

Unfortunately, the clearance was dropped in the system and we had to re-file.  We ended up sitting on the taxiway for a while to get it sorted out.

You could argue we might have been able to sort it out in the air quicker by bypassing the FSS completely and going to center, but as I sat there in the dark with the clouds swirling around the mountains to our east, I was glad we decided to stay on the ground. Yeah, I made two General Officers waiting for 10 min, but they are alive and probably don’t even remember they were delayed.

Picking up clearances in the air requires some advanced decision making.

It isn’t always the right choice.

You are in control of the aircraft and your passengers’ lives.

I hope that helps explain some of the intricacies of picking up clearances.

FAA Publishes clearance delivery phone numbers

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We completed our pretakeoff checks and departed before the C210 pilot looked up from his kneeboard. We cleared the Class D airspace without hearing the tower clear him for takeoff. Similar situations exist at many other airports that lie within busy airspace, are not served by a SID, or have poor radar coverage.

To avoid long delays and circuitous routings from ATC, when weather permits, I frequently depart VFR and pick up my IFR clearance en route. The keys to making this procedure work:

I also enter “Departed XXXX” (where XXXX is the ID for the airport) in the remarks field to indicate the airport where I started the flight.

Using this procedure, your filed flight plan probably won’t time out, even if you won’t ask for your clearance until a couple of hours after takeoff, because the departure time in the flight plan is based on the place and time where you expect to get your clearance, not when you took off from the departure airport.

Using an appropriate en route fix, usually a VOR (but an RNAV waypoint or intersection can work, too) as the “departure point” helps ensure that the appropriate ATC facility gets your flight plan.

As you approach the fix filed as your departure point, you can talk to approach or center, as appropriate, and they’ll almost always have your clearance readily available. If you’re already receiving VFR advisories, the controller may even offer the clearance to you before you ask.

The video below shows an example of the process.

You can find (to a good approximation) the appropriate center frequency on an en route chart before you take off or in the “nearest” pages of your GPS while you’re en route. You can also find a center/approach frequency on an approach plate for an airport near the fix you specified as your departure point. An approach facility often owns the airspace below about 10,000 feet around airports with published procedures, so if you’re cruising at such altitudes, you may get your clearance from an approach controller, not someone at a center.

If you need further help and haven’t noted the appropriate frequency before takeoff, contact flight service with your position, and they’ll give you a frequency to try.

Back to the C210 at Henderson. Given that the weather is usually good VFR in the Las Vegas area, a much better procedure for a flight into say, southern California, is to file an IFR flight plan with a “departure point” of, for example, DAG or PMD, and an ETD that accounts for the time you expect to need to fly from KHND to arrive over that fix. Here’s a routing into Long Beach that might work well.

I also use this procedure often when flying from eastern WA or OR back into Seattle, where an IFR letdown is frequently required even when the skies are CAVU east of the Cascades.

Having filed an IFR flight plan that begins over a fix such as YKM, I typically depart VFR from a non-towered airport (e.g., KBDN), and proceed toward YKM, where several airways and arrivals into the Seattle area begin. I call Seattle Center (if I’m not already getting flight following) 20-30 miles from YKM and my clearance is ready.

The same procedure works when departing a towered airport, such as KGEG. In fact, because I file a VOR such as ELN as the departure point and my ETD is the time I expect to be over ELN, the tower probably won’t have an IFR flight plan for me, so no confusion ensues either when I depart, or when I request my clearance to Boeing Field from Seattle Center near Ellensburg.