VFR aircraft questions

ATCs1222 Junior Member Brooklyn, NY

Hi SM

I have questions about VFR aicraft: Would you restrict a VFR aircraft's altitude to keep him in your airspace until the next sector takes the handoff or let the VFR aircraft keep climbing, and make the point out as soon as possible? I get it if you restrict a VFR aircraft's altitude for traffic purpose but i mean they're VFR. At my facility we do it differently, just seem kind of weird..Thanks..

atcguruaf Rico Suave Right here

Point em out, or hand em off BEFORE entering the airspace, with some indication (either verbal or non verbal coordination) as to what altitude the aircraft wants and destination. If I can't get the point out, or get em handed off, I'll either restrict the aircraft to my airspace or terminate him if he wants to continue.

killswitch Tin Pusher Ohio

The only aircraft we've ever restricted VFR for altitudes were military king airs that liked to circle around the airport at all altitudes. When they'd ask higher, I'd always make them wait till I handed them off because they weren't flying to a destination. That way I could let the Center know what was about to happen to them ha!

Otherwise, nah. We let them go. But very rarely do I have one that's fast enough to get above 12,000ft before I can get a hand off on them.

atcguruaf Rico Suave Right here

Oh, and if the aircraft is already that close to the other controller's airspace, I won't even radar ID the guy. I'll give the frequency for the other controller.

ATCs1222 Junior Member Brooklyn, NY

thank you all for the adivses, appreciate it!!!!

MikeATC Retired FAA, NATCA Member Nashville TN

We never restricted VFR's to keep them from entering another controllers airspace when they destined someplace outside our airspace. If the other controller doesn't take the handoff, we terminate their radar service, tell them to squawk VFR, remove their VFR flight plan from the system, and give them the next controllers frequency.

The only exception is if they are doing something like Killswitch describes, but even then we might just terminate them.

Radium Epic Member

when I was in the military, I never even thought about restricting a VFR or turning him for traffic.

Then I got to socal, where vfr is like baby ifr. We restrict alts, turn, you name it. Move the vfr away from the jet, restrict them so they dont do anything crazy, and so on. IT was actually an interesting concept to grasp at first. It seems easy enough when you read it but in practice you are like OH shit I get it now.

FM_Weasel Trusted Contributor

It can be cultural to an extent. I've worked in areas where adjacent sectors will not pick up the line if they know it's for a VFR point out/handoff. Nor do they expect you to keep them spinning until the automated handoff is accepted.

Coordination should be affected prior to any aircraft entering another controller's area of jurisdiction. But, especially where the class of airspace doesn't require minimum separation of VFR-IFR aircraft, I don't think every facility gets wrapped around the axle about it. It just depends on where you work and how everyone deals with VFRs (though the hard and fast rule is that you must coordinate).

ATCs1222 Junior Member Brooklyn, NY

thank you all for the great info!!!!