Something that’s always bugged me, as I see so many different ways that other players communicate once handed over from TOWER to DEPARTURE (or CENTER when DEP is not available):
What’s generally correct? 1-3 makes sense for me, but 4 is not so logical (especially if your destination is not in the area).
Normally I just Check In, and leave it at that.
Just check in. Most of the time you’re IFR and on a flight plan.
If you’re VFR, go with flight following. Do make sure you’re familiar with the VFR rules.
You normally aren’t required to ask for altitude changes as ATC has already cleared you to be at the altitudes on your flightplan when you got “Radar contact”
If you’re flying to an airport outside of center’s airspace, please don’t request radar vectors to your destination’s airport…
Hello!
Whenever you are handed off from Tower to Departure/Centre, and if you’re doing an IFR flight, a Check In is more than enough. Any other request is not needed. In fact, requesting FF would be requesting a VFR service (hence why if you Check In and then ask for FF, you’ll be given a “Flight Following request not required after Check In” command); requesting an altitude change isn’t very useful too since, as the ATC Manual says (Section 6.4.4), with the Check In, controllers accept the filed flight plan and give clearance to their initial cruising altitude. Finally, requesting RV to the arrival airport is wrong and another unnecessary request. The frequency serving as Departure has no ability to vector you for your arrival airport if that is very far away (or in general too). As you said, imagine if the airport isn’t in the area (i.e. taking off from EGLL > contacting Departure > asking for RV to KJFK).
What you do is correct! Check In and leave it at that. Obviously, you need to pay attention to your flight throughout the whole climb since you are considered active and if you’re not, you may receive violations. During cruise, you can be away and won’t get violations.
If you’d like, you (or anyone else reading my reply!) can check this topic, Section 6.
Hope this helped, thanks!
The Request Radar Vectors is also a VFR service.
Commercial airline operations are IFR (at least irl). Personally, I think they should only allow GA aircraft to request FF or RV.
Last but not least, I often see confusion regarding visual approaches. A Visual approach is an IFR procedure, just like ILS/GPS.
Weather permitting (irl), many airports/ATC prefer visual approaches as they’re least restrictive. OTOH, ILS is the most restrictive and results in reduced hourly arrival rates.
It’s actually a bit ironic the busy IF hubs are almost always “expect ILS” — sadly & unfortunately, a significant number of pilots on ES do not understand visual approaches. 😫