Flying with Friends?

[Josh Appleton 1386271]

I am looking to do some flying with a friend but we wont be using shared cockpit as we both want to use PMDG and cant get shared cockpit working, therefore we will be doing a sort of group flight and just following each other to our destination. I wanted to know if there was anything specific we need to do in our flight plans or whether we needed to let controllers know of our group flight intentions when on Vatsim. Any other help on this would be greatly appreciated, Thanks!

[Trevor Hannant]

If you're flying IFR in PMDG aircraft, I'd expect to be given proper radar separation. As long as you're both ready to pushback, taxi and take off at the same time, you'll be following each other along route at the prescribed separation for the airspace you're in.

 

If you're flying GA in something smaller and lighter, then when you call up a controller, state that you're a "formation of 2" and you should be able to keep on each other's wingtips.

[Ernesto Alvarez 818262]

doesnt matter if your in GA or not. if you intend to be in formation, simply call up and include the formation info. IE "ABC Approach, ABC123 flight of 2 737's IFR DEFG"

 

thats going to immediately tell the controller you intend to depart and stay in formation. with larger aircraft they may not be able to put you both on the runway at the same time

 

also keep in mind when calling as a formation during the flight, they will only call the lead aircraft, which is the one thats talking to ATC, any other aircraft in the flight will remain silent unless the formation is broken by ATC. they will add the word "flight" at the end of the callsign to show its a formation

 

Example

ABC APP: "ABC123 flight, ABC Approach"

Lead Aircraft responds

[Josh Appleton 1386271]

Ok thankyou, we will try this at some point

[David Zhong]

If you are flying in formation, ATC will expect that you will fly reasonably close to each other (meaning typically within 1 NM) unless you advise of a wider spacing.