VFR Flight Following – Helicopter Considerations  

VFR flight following can be extremely valuable. Depending on the airspace and service being provided, ATC can offer safety alerts, traffic advisories, limited radar vectors, sequencing, and assistance with weather or airspace avoidance. 

Pilots who are not accustomed to using flight following sometimes believe it will make a VFR flight more complicated. Once you know how to enter and leave the system efficiently, it often makes the flight simpler. 

The first important distinction is that a VFR flight plan and VFR flight following are two different services. 

A VFR flight plan is filed with Flight Service or another flight-plan filing service. Its principal purpose is search and rescue. Activating the flight plan establishes your departure time, route, destination, and estimated time of arrival. If you do not close or extend the flight plan, search-and-rescue procedures normally begin 30 minutes after your filed arrival time. 

A VFR flight plan does not automatically provide ATC radar services, and ATC does not normally open or close it for you. The pilot remains responsible for activating, updating, and closing the plan. The FAA discusses these procedures in AIM 5-1-4, Flight Plan—VFR Flights and AIM 6-2-6, Search and Rescue. 

VFR flight following, by contrast, is coordinated with ATC. If you are departing a towered airport, you may be able to arrange it on the ground through Clearance Delivery or Ground Control. Otherwise, you can request it from the appropriate Approach, Departure, or Center controller after takeoff. 

Receiving a discrete transponder code does not necessarily mean that you are receiving en route flight following. ATC may assign a discrete code for Class B or Class C services, local radar services, or other operational reasons. That said, when you are already receiving one of these services, it is often easy to continue flight following beyond the terminal area. Just ask. 

Outside airspace where specific radar services are required, basic VFR radar service generally includes: 

• Safety alerts 
• Traffic advisories 
• Limited radar vectoring on a workload-permitting basis 
• Sequencing where procedures or agreements provide for it 

The FAA describes these services in AIM 4-1-18, Terminal Radar Services for VFR Aircraft. 

Flight following does not transfer responsibility for terrain clearance, weather avoidance, navigation, or seeing and avoiding other aircraft to the controller. Traffic advisories and limited vectors may also be unavailable when controller workload, radar coverage, or radio coverage prevents ATC from providing them. 

Those limitations are particularly relevant to helicopters. 

Helicopters frequently operate at altitudes where terrain interferes with radio reception and radar coverage. In mountainous areas, maintaining flight following may require climbing to an altitude that is inconsistent with the mission, or unsuitable because of weather or helicopter performance. 

ATC will let you know if a particular altitude is necessary to maintain radar or radio coverage. You can then decide whether operating within that constraint makes sense for your flight. 

Although I do not use ATC flight following on every cross-country flight, I have learned to request it whenever practical while operating in or near Class C airspace. 

Participating VFR aircraft receive Class C services within Class C airspace and its associated outer area. The procedural outer area normally extends approximately 20 nautical miles from the primary Class C airport but is not depicted on sectional charts. Additional details can be found in AIM 3-2-4, Class C Airspace.

I will explore the specifics of the Class C outer area in a separate post. For now, understanding this non-regulatory service area helped me better appreciate the differences in how ATC handles helicopters operating around Class B and Class C airspace.

I began my flying career operating helicopters in busy Class B airspace. We often communicated directly with Tower on a dedicated helicopter frequency. The controller working that frequency dealt primarily with helicopters and was familiar with our routes, landing areas, and capabilities. 

I was continually impressed by how easily we could accomplish unusual helicopter operations within a Class B surface area or beneath its shelves. 

Later, I sometimes found similar requests more difficult around Class C airports. The difference was not necessarily the airspace designation or a controller’s willingness to help. Class C facilities have different staffing, equipment, traffic flows, and divisions of responsibility between Approach and Tower. A tower controller concentrating solely on takeoffs and landings at the main class C airport runways may not be in the best position to identify and sequence a helicopter operating several miles from the airport. 

Once I began coordinating with Approach first, many of those operations became much easier. Approach could identify me, observe the larger traffic picture, coordinate with Tower, and present the request as part of an organized sequence. 

For that reason, my personal technique is to contact Approach whenever I expect to operate within approximately 20 nautical miles of a Class C airport, particularly when I will be inside or beneath its shelves. 

A concise initial call might be: 

“Portland Approach, Helicopter NXXXAB, request flight following.” 

Once the controller responds, be prepared to provide your aircraft type, position, altitude, destination or intended route, and anything unique you are requesting. The controller will normally assign a discrete transponder code and advise you when your aircraft has been identified on radar. Providing the requested information in a logical order minimizes back-and-forth and makes it easier for the controller to enter you into the system. 

If you no longer need the service, ask to terminate it: 

“NXXXAB, request termination of flight following.” 

ATC will normally respond with something similar to: 

“NXXXAB, radar service terminated, squawk VFR, frequency change approved.” 

Read back the transponder instruction as necessary, change to 1200, and continue on the appropriate frequency. 

Flight following is not always practical for a helicopter, and it does not remove the pilot’s VFR responsibilities. When radio and radar coverage permit, however, it can be advantageous for both the pilots and controllers.