Flight Planning and Following Is Not Just for Cross-Country

It’s vital for pilots to know these risk management skills.

Meg Godlewski

Tuesday, May 27, 2025 at 11:26 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

IFR flight plans provide important layers of planning and situational awareness to the benefit of everyone in the sky. [Shutterstock]

Key Takeaways:

Private pilot applicants are still required to understand and demonstrate traditional VFR flight planning skills, including the creation of an analog navlog, as DPEs may test the fundamental knowledge behind modern navigational apps.
Knowledge of flight following procedures is essential for VFR pilots, requiring an understanding of its workload-dependent nature for ATC services and its benefits for situational awareness.
Applicants must know how to file, activate, and critically, close VFR flight plans using various methods (phone, radio, or app) to prevent unnecessary search and rescue operations.

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I don’t think the check ride went very well because the CFI was raising a stink that lingered about the DPE’s insistence that the applicant know how to file and activate a flight plan and know the procedure for obtaining flight following.

The CFI argued that these skills are obsolete because of the technology available now, suggesting that navigational apps, such as ForeFlight and Garmin Pilot, combined with ADS-B make the filing of flight plans and using flight following obsolete. He noted you can track someone via an app like FlightAware.com if you know their tail number and know where they are at all times.