Question regarding VFR flight plans: Had filed via homebriefing.nl for last Saturday a flight plan VFR from Rotterdam to my brother in Germany, but could not go on the trip. Sent via homebriefing.nl a cancellation in the morning (which did not trigger the sending of an AFTN CNL message it seems). Was kayaking during the day and found a flurry of calls from Langen AIS on my phone in the afternoon. AIS Langen informed me that they treated my flight plan as active even if no DEP message was received (explanation: “sometimes the departure airfield forgets it”).
So, from my earlier understanding, the flight plan semantics should have worked in such a way that a filed flight plan that was not opened by a DEP message would quietly cancel itself after the half hour after EOBT; contrarily in my case, AIS Schiphol sent twice a delay message (on their own, not asked for by me!) after the first half hour after EOBT was over without me leaving, and AIS Langen thought I was on my way and were concerned by not receiving any ARR message.
Lesson learned: If using homebriefing.nl, confirm cancellation (on the phone) to be sure a present-but-never-opened flight plan is not worrying someone downstream.
Sebastian_H wrote:
contrarily in my case, AIS Schiphol sent twice a delay message (on their own, not asked for by me!)
Where are you supposed to see AIS messages? or know about this?
EuroFPL & AFPEX do give that but I doubt SkyDemon or homebriefing.nl will give anything back
Yes; the German AIS WILL monitor ALL flightplans, not only opened ones. (The opening bit merely updates the departure time they use). So if you don‘t go, always cancel (I know you did). Somehow, your CNL did not get through to Germany. This just happens. VFR flightplans are a hap-hazard, manual and error-prone system from decades ago.
Suggest to call them (LVNL) and ask what happened with your CNL message.
Ibra wrote:
Where are you supposed to see AIS messages? or know about this?
homebriefing.nl (in the previous and current incarnation) shows you a copy of the AFTN messages related to your flight plan; AIS Langen sent “SVC REQ DEP, DLA OR CNL FOR: (FPL-[…]” and Amsterdam ARO sent DLA; IMHO sending a CNL way after planned departure time would be in this case more sensible, but who knows (the whole SAR reasoning is unconvincing since I don’t file a hiking plan, or motorcycling plan, or kayaking plan – if I want someone to look for me, I’ll let friends and family know).
boscomantico wrote:
Yes; the German AIS WILL monitor ALL flightplans, not only opened ones. (The opening bit merely updates the departure time they use). So if you don‘t go, always cancel (I know you did). Somehow, your CNL did not get through to Germany. This just happens. VFR flightplans are a hap-hazard, manual and error-prone system from decades ago.
That was the interesting bit to learn! I usually tried not to plan a) too far in advance, and b) cancel anything I can’t use, but in this particular case things went wrong. To be honest, the only reason I can see regarding the mandatory flight plans I have to file when using my home base is that it probably auto-fills the billing system for the monthly EuroControl invoices.
boscomantico wrote:
Suggest to call them (LVNL) and ask what happened with your CNL message.
Paraphrasing AMS ARO, they know that the new homebriefing.nl website is of improveable quality, most likely my clicking on cancellation and confirming never closed the transaction with the backend.
Sebastian_H wrote:
homebriefing.nl (in the previous and current incarnation) shows you a copy of the AFTN messages related to your flight plan
Ah, at least you have traces or ways to know someone else is muddling in your FPL…
boscomantico wrote:
Yes; the German AIS WILL monitor ALL flightplans, not only opened ones.
What’s the point of that? It will only lead to problems of the kind Sebastian_H describes.
Swedish ARO does not require delay of a VFR flight plan if the delay is less than 60 minutes.
If the pilot of a fast aircraft makes maximum use of that rule on a flight from the south of Sweden to the north of Germany it could actually cause SAR action.
Security reasons, it’s top secret 
Sebastian_H wrote:
AIS Langen sent “SVC REQ DEP, DLA OR CNL FOR: (FPL-[…]” and Amsterdam ARO sent DLA;
In my experience they always send a DLA in response to such requests. Probably because not responding to the “REQ DEP, DLA OR CNL” message is against some rule and they know you haven’t departed because their system is linked to the one used in the tower. They could maybe also send a CNL message, but I’ve never seen that. Would be a bit customer unfriendly to cancel your plan for you if you’re late delaying it.
Switzerland also acts on FPLs that never departed. Learned that (with my flight instructor) on one of my first lessons when it was foggy and we trained radio traffic in the cafe while waiting for the fog to clear. When we came back into the C office to see if the weather had improved, the C office had just been called to figure out where we were.
