V-02: experiences

[pv892c]

When going for my V-02 two "odd" things happened which I was unsure of.

(1) Prior to takeoff, clearance Delivery gave me a heading and a Departure frequency. After takeoff, I took CD's heading, but wasn't sure when or if I was supposed to tune away from the tower towards the departure frequency. I also was not sure when I could break away from CD's heading and resume my VFR navigation. Eventually, tower told me flight-following was not available and terminated contact. Am I supposed to say on tower frequency until told otherwise? or was I supposed to contact departure on my own? Also, how long was I supposed to maintain CD's heading?

(2) After breaking contact with the tower, I tried to phone in to socal approach for flight following. No answer. I tried several times on several frequencies. Is this typical for VRF? I just navigated VFR on my own from KSNA to KONT, staying out of any B/C airspace and contacted KONT tower when close to it's airspace. I wonder if PE was just testing me to make sure I could navigate without the help of SoCal Approach.

I passed. I was surprised considering I got a little confused on the two above points.

Thanks, David

[Keith Smith]

David,

Have you reviewed the sample transcript for the V2 rating? http://training.pilotedge.net/object/v2Transcript.html

Tower will hand you off to Socal at the appropriate time. You should not make this frequency change yourself. The only time you can make a freq change at your discretion after takeoff would be after departing a Class D airport if you're squawking VFR, and that can be done after you leave the Class D airspace.

Regarding the heading, logic dictates that you would fly the heading until told to resume own navigation, which means that vectors are no longer being provided. The regulation that legally compels you to do this would be the one stating that you must comply with ATC instructions. In this case, "fly heading 330" or whatever it was that was assigned.

I can't tell you why there was no answer on the other frequencies because I'm not sure which ones you tried. It may have been that you were tuning frequencies that were out of range, or that ATC was having an issue (rare, but it happens). More to the point, though, the goal of the rating is for you to coordinate the flight following on the ground. The reason that you weren't handed off to Socal, presumably, was because you never advised the delivery/ground controller that you wanted flight following to Ontario. Had you done, so, then the tower controller would've actually handed you off to Socal Approach. Check out the V2 transcript, it gives an end to end example.

Give the rating another try with flight following from the beginning. Hopefully your experience will be quite different.

[pv892c]

For whatever reason, "Radar flight following unavailable." I was confused, but continued VFR at that point.

http://www.pilotedge.net/recordings/hou ... _18011.mp3 at 5:24

Also, listen at 7:30 regarding an approach "power failure."

[Keith Smith]

Now it's all becoming clear. The controller that was working approach had a power failure and was away for a little while until it was resolved. That explains the lack of flight following!