How long are flight plans good for?

Old Pete said:
VFR 1 hr.
5-1-4



IFR
Minimum of 1hr
5-1-12


I had always thought it was 2hrs
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First of all, no fair looking it up and reading it :D

But note that 5-1-12 says a minimum of 1 hour. My guess is that is one of those operational things that may vary from time to time and place to place, although one would expect with Lockheed that it would be uniform.
 
Just talked to KADS tower and they said IFR flight plans stay in the system for 2 hours normally. If the WX is bad they have seen them stay in the system for 3 hours.
 
Hmm im curious as to why the information in varying. Obviously there arent people getting on here and lying, and its hard to mis-interpret the difference between 1hour, 2 hours, and 4 hours.

Maybe an operational thing from place to place, like midlife said. All I can say, is that it might say 1 hour in the aim, but i have never had a FP time out after an hour, even in the busiest of airspace.
 
I know that as a controller if a filled time is 1730 UTC the plan will drop out of the system automatically at 1930 UTC unless the a/c departs then tags up of course.
 
NORMALLY the flight plan is valid from 1/2 hr prior(a beacon code is assigned at that time) to 2hrs after the PDT(proposed departure time) That being said, someone mentioned until your clearance void time. This is true, if you pick up your clearance 1:59 past the PDT than your clearance is now active until your void time. (It may be a good idea to remind the controller that you are running late and to update the PDT because, the computer will still drop the flight plan unless that is done.)

Additionally there are times when 3 and 4 hr drop times are used due to system delays. If there are a lot of ground delays and EDCT's going on than at least 3 hr drops are in effect. This is a center function so ZDC(and all encompassed facilities) may be on 3 hr drops and ZTL on 2 hr drops.
 
I have had my IFR flight plan drop out at 1 hour after PDT more than once while instructing in Florida. That's led to filing in-flight which is always a treat, so I've learned to closely monitor the proposed departure time vs. the actual time.
 
I know this is an old thread, but thank God for fltplan.com and their mobile site. Flying air ambulance means I never exactly know when my departure is and the "quick change" feature of fltplan is a life saver.
 
The availability 1/2 hour before the proposed departure time has been mentioned, but does anyone have an FAA reference?
 
MidlifeFlyer said:
The availability 1/2 hour before the proposed departure time has been mentioned, but does anyone have an FAA reference?
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No reference, but every time I've called for a clearance more than 30 minutes before my proposed time they don't have anything. I think it may just be a function of when the strip prints out locally because I can often get a PDC earlier than that.
 
BobDDuck said:
No reference, but every time I've called for a clearance more than 30 minutes before my proposed time they don't have anything. I think it may just be a function of when the strip prints out locally because I can often get a PDC earlier than that.
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I've had the same experience but was wondering. The only reference I've seen relating to 1/2 hour is that the AIM recommends flight plans be filed at least 30 minutes before the departure time in order to ensure it makes it upstream to ATC. That kind of suggests that's the time frame in which it actually gets to ATC as a "live" strip, but it may be irrelevant.
 
The strip auto-prints at exactly 30 minutes prior to the "P" time. It can, however, be strip requested and printed manually if it is before the 30 minutes prior. Same goes for PDC clearances. They don't show up in the queue as available to send until 30 minutes prior. However, if the flight plan is requested manually, it will then show up in the PDC list and can be sent via PDC... even if it is before the 30 minute mark.

Bottom line is that, if you call earlier than 30 minutes prior to your proposed time, Clearance Delivery won't have your strip/flight plan sitting in front of them. They do have the ability to pull it up manually though, as long as it is in the system.
 
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