Last week’s Testing Tuesday post was one of the questions on my Instrument Knowledge test that I had missed while I was studying for the exam. It was one that, this time around, I answered correctly (I always attempt to answer the question before I post it here). Here is one that I answered wrong before, and answered wrong AGAIN before deciding to post it on Smart Flight Training (how embarrassing!). But that’s the point, right? Expand our knowledge together and admit our mistakes and missteps in the hope that other pilots will learn from us without having to make the same mistakes we did. After all, there are plenty of mistakes to go around!
The correct answer is a: Prior to transitioning to IFR, contact the nearest FSS, close the VFR portion, and request ATC clearance.
A composite flight plan is actually two flight plans – one VFR and one IFR. What makes it “composite” is that you will transition from one to the other at some specified point during your flight. This is generally used when a portion of your flight can be done under VFR but another portion CANNOT be done under VFR and must be flow under instrument flight rules. In these cases, you might choose to file a VFR flight plan for the portion of the flight that you can, and an IFR flight plan only for the portion that is required to be flown under instrument flight rules.
In the question above, we assume that you have filed a VFR flight plan for the first portion of your flight, and an IFR flight plan for the second portion of your flight. The question specifically asks how to go about the transition from the VFR flight plan to the IFR flight plan.
Thinking about the process and regulations, we know that we must be on an IFR flight plan before entering instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), so that can eliminate option b since it says that you wait until you reach the proposed point of transition. This might not actually be in instrument conditions yet, but the idea is to activate the plan before you get to the point where you should be flying the IFR plan (using instrument flight rules). So answer b is out.
That leaves us with answers a and c. Reaching into our private pilot knowledge, who do we ask to close our VFR flight plans? For IFR flight plans, ATC closes them once we land, but for VFR flight plans, we have to call FSS at 1-800-WX-BRIEF, right? ARTCC is never really involved in filing or cancelling of VFR flight plans. So with that, we can eliminate answer c, because it has us activating our IFR flight plan AND cancelling our VFR flight plan with them.
So, looking back into out private pilot training days helps us find the right answer to this Instrument Rating knowledge test question, which tells us that to transition from VFR to IFR on a composite flight plan, that we should call the nearest FSS (you do know how to find that, right?), cancel your VFR flight plan, and ask for ATC clearance from the FSS, all before reaching the point where we planned on starting our IFR flight plan to complete our flight.
For more information on composite flight plans, we can look at AIM 5-1-7: Composite Flight Plan (VFR/IFR Flights)
Andrew Hartley is a certificated flight instructor and commercial pilot in Columbus, Ohio.
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