Skyhawk 172/Cutlass 172
Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Instrument
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 200; Flight Crew Total 300; Flight Crew Type 200
Situational Awareness
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Human Factors
I am a brand new instructor who hasn't filed a VFR flight plan in at least a decade. When I filed and told the Flight Service Station what my enroute time was going to be; I did not take into account that it was only flight time enroute; it did not include touch-and-goes at one of my airports. The problem arose from failure to add time in the pattern to the time enroute. Contributing factors include lack of experience with VFR flight plan filing; lack of experience as a flight instructor; and inattention to details when filing the flight plan. The error was discovered when I landed and called to close my flight plan. I was told I was overdue. Corrective actions include learning from the experience and being more careful about estimating time enroute. Next time I'll be more accurate and add an hour of buffer to make sure I'm not overdue. From the human performance considerations; as a new instructor I should have read about flight plans more carefully and implemented the steps in order to file and close successfully.
C172 instructor pilot was reported overdue when he failed to add time for touch and goes in his flight planning.