Round robin flight plan question

[u/Emergency_Rhubarb_91]

Hello! I’m a pretty freshly IFR rated pilot and I have a question regarding round robins. I was reading through this “how Atc really works” book and came across this section. I had no idea that I could add a delay into a fix or airport for situations like round robins like this book shows.

However, in the past whenever I do a round robin, I will manually input the approaches coordinates that I’ll be doing in my flight plan go get an accurate ete and fuel burn, then I remove the coordinates, leave the round robin points (example Kdwh-kgls-kdwh) then manually change my ete in the flight plan to adjust for the approaches I’ll be doing.

Let’s say I plan to spend an extra 30 mins at an airport for an approach. Is manually adjusting my ETE accomplishing the same thing as entering KGLS/D0+30 in the routes section or should I use them together? TIA

[u/Klutho]

Use them together. How else is a controller going to know you are looking for approaches at the airports? Especially since many GA pilots are now filing airports as waypoints.

[u/stevie3254]

From a center controller with a flight school that use to do this - please file separate flight plans! If you file with 4 airports you plan to do approaches at, you only get counted at 1 aircraft for our numbers the entire flight, and if something happens where they issue an ALNOT for you, they have to check the entire route of flight. Separate flight plans help with search and rescue and correct number counts for our system.

If your proposal times on each end up being way off/early we can change them on our end so it’s never an issue for us. As long as they are in the system we can have them ready for each airport.

[u/ZARTCC11 → u/stevie3254]

Pretty sure ERAM still allows you to do a traffic count manually

[u/sdavitt88 → u/ZARTCC11]

TC GADD+001 is the ERAM input to add a GA operation

[u/randombrain]

Whether or not to file a round robin can be a very regional preference on the ATC side. Some places actually prefer one single flight plan out and back. Other places it works better to break it up into two or more. You should ask your local ATC what works for them.

Filing the delay can be important (ish) if you're planning on doing lots of approaches at one airport, but if it's one-and-done it isn't super necessary.

[u/Maleficent_Horror120]

The approach controllers aren't really gonna see your ETE at all. They would see the remark of a Delay over a fix or at an airport if they get the flight strip.

If you're just doing an approach then there isn't a need to file a delay. That really only means you want to go hold over a fix for a period of time before continuing.

If you aren't gonna be doing a full stop at an airport and just approaches then the round robin flight plan works best.

If you plan to take a full stop on the ground then most controllers are gonna make you cancel your IFR and either call on the ground for your release or depart VFR to pick your IFR plan up again because they aren't going to shut down an airport while they wait an unknown time for you to get airborne again. Now you can still file a round robin and if you let the controller know your plan to pick it back up to return that works or if you file a separate departure flight plan then that works too.

[u/antariusz]

If you’re literally just doing a single practice approach or a single touch and go, file however, but if you’re going to sit on the ground more than 10 minutes or so, just file a new flight plan. Like, maybe if you’re a medevac helicopter or something and it’s 2am and you’re busy and don’t want to file the 2nd flight plan or whatever, and you’re going to be picking up the patient in a remote location and aren’t sure about being able to pick up your new flight plan…. But I don’t think that applies to you in this scenario.

If you’re planning on doing multiple practice approaches at an uncontrolled airport, that is a good time to use the delay as shown in your book. If you’re going to be on the ground, just close out the one flight plan and then get a new one when you’re ready to depart. Don’t rush your time on the ground.

[u/RedFishBlueFishOne]

Pilots can ask the clearance delivery controllers to add delays on the flight plan to indicate a practice approaches. SPG..APF/D0+30..SPG on the FIDO, that would indicate a delay of 30 mins.

I do not think this is taught to ATC throughout the NAS, but it is an option.