Hi!
Jon from fly8MA.com here.
Today we're going to look at how to get VFR Flight Following on the ground at a Class
Delta airport.
So before you even depart the Class Delta airport, you'll already be in the system,
and you'll already have a squawk code assigned to you, and they'll give you a departure frequency.
So all you'll have to do after you take off is flip over to that departure frequency,
and then you'll be talking to a departure controller, approach controller, and they'll
be able to provide you with the VFR Flight Following without you having to deal with
trying to copy down a squawk code, and give your destination, and all of those sorts of
things while you're in the air.
So, let's go ahead and jump right into it.
Alright, now that we are sitting here, we're at NorthWest 24 holding short of Charlie in
a non-movement area.
We're going to go ahead and get our ATC.
Alright so our
wind is 260@9, about ten statute miles of visibility, no ceiling, at least below 12,000,
altimeter setting 30.01, and runway 24 is what we'll expect to use.
We can go over to the Clearance Delivery Frequency at 121.6.
What we're going to do today is actually depart from Ann Arbor and travel south to Wood County
Airport on the bottom end of this chart, and we will get VFR Flight Following from Detroit
Approach Control, and actually be underneath Detroit's Class Bravo airspace.
I'll go ahead and ask for flight following while we're on the ground here so we don't
have to do it while we're in the air.
"Ann Arbor Ground, Skyhawk 38Y at NW Ts with Sierra, VFR Southbound to Wood County airport
request, VFR Flight Following."
"38Y, Ann Arbor Ground, Runway 24, Taxi via Charlie Alpha, 3500."
"Taxi runway 24 via Charlie Alpha, and 3,500 on the altitude, 38Y."
"38Y What's the destination airport you're going to?"
"Destination is Wood County 1G0."
Alright, that little double click there just means she heard us.
Our taxi clearance is to taxi runway 24 via Charlie, link up with Alpha here, and taxi
right there to Alpha 1.
We'll do a run-up and I'll depart runway 24.
"38Y, you can taxi runway 24 via Charlie Alpha, I'll get you the squawk code in a minute."
"24 via Charlie Alpha, and I'll stand by for the squawk code, 38Y."
At the intersection of Charlie and Alpha, we'll look, check, make sure that we're clear
and no one else is taxiing on alpha.
"38Y you're going to squawk 5205."
"Squawk 5205, 38Y."
So we have our squawk code at 5205.
We can see this directional sign here that tells us we are now on taxiway alpha.
Alright, so our run-up is now complete.
We're going to go ahead and expect to talk to Detroit on 118.95.
We'll have that dialed in there.
It's all set and ready to go.
We'll be asking for clearance to take off from Ann Arbor Tower 120.3.
We'll go ahead and move this over.
We have our checklist ready to go there.
Pulling up to the hold short line, we're holding short of runway 24 at Alpha 1, and we have
our aircraft turned so we can see the other aircraft coming in on final.
On our engine run-up, I'm going to go ahead and do our before-takeoff-checklist.
Our doors are closed and latched, our fuel selector valve is set to both.
Instruments still look good, we have good oil pressure, good oil temperature.
Our landing lights are on.
Runway heading-- we'll check that out there once we're on the runway.
We can go ahead and call for departure now.
"Ann Arbor Tower, Skyhawk 1538Y, ready for departure VFR southbound."
"38Y, Ann Arbor Tower, left turn, southbound approved, runway 24, clear for takeoff, wind
260, gust 16."
"Clear for takeoff runway 24, left turn, southbound approved, Skyhawk 1538Y."
We'll slowly advance our throttle.
Everything looks good.
Advance full throttle and wait until we see rotation speed.
We have no wind so we won't have any aileron wind direction.
And lower the nose as we clear obstacles to VOI.
Our left turn southbound, releasing a little bit of right rudder pressure.
I'm still using the right rudder, but just a little less now that we're in a left turn.
"38Y contact Detroit on 1895."
"Detroit on 1895, 38Y, have a good one."
We got a frequency change over to Detroit, and we'll go ahead and give them a call now.
Following our southbound heading, listening to the frequency for a moment and nobody is
talking, so we're not going to cut anyone off.
"Detroit Approach, Skyhawk 1538Y, leaving 1700 for 3500."
"1538Y, Detroit Departure, ident please."
He asked us to ident, we'll press our "ident" button so that we'll pop up on his radar screen
so he sees where we're at.
"38Y, radar contact, one-half miles south of Ann Arbor airport, maintain VFR metro 3002,
what's your requested altitude?
" 3002, maintain VFR, and requested altitude tonight will be 3500, 38Y."
"38Y, Roger, you're clear to enter route, proceed on course, maintain VFR at 3500."
"Maintain VFR 3500, Cleared into Detroit Class Bravo airspace, 1538Y.
So make sure you always readback that you have Class Bravo airspace clearance.
So now, we're talking to Detroit Departure, or Detroit Approach (really the same person,
we just call them different things), if we're leaving we call them "Departure", if we're
coming in we call them "Approach."
If we've got VFR flight following down to our destination 1G0, we are going to get radar
traffic advisories work load permitting, so not guaranteed that they're going to tell
you about every single little aircraft out there, but they'll tell you about the ones
that they can depending upon their workload.
Just because it's quiet doesn't mean that they're not busy.
They may be working two stations, and may be very busy at another station.
We've got that clearance into the Class Bravo at 3500.
If we weren't cleared into the Class Bravo we would want to stay below that shelf at
3000 feet preferably.
We don't want to go 3400 and just be barely underneath it.
So, we're cruising down to 1G0, we got VFR flight following.
Hopefully, this all made sense to you.
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below.
Thanks so much for watching guys.
Remember, fly every day, and if not then fly8MA.com.
See you all later.