Hello,
When flying under vfr, out of a controlled field with Flight Following, when do I need to cancel when planning to land at an uncontrolled field? Is this automatically done by ATC?
You can easily do this while in the air, so that flight following would be cancelled and you sent over to the CTAF of the field. As you are flying under VFR, it would be your call as to when you want to do that, because as you are not under IFR, ATC can not protect the field from any other arrivals or departures occurring. So the sooner you could cancel that and be sent over to the CTAF for the field, the better.
BL.
I echo what Brad said in his answer to your first question. For the second question:
It will be if you don’t request cancellation on your own, likely when you’re getting close to your destination. The controller may inform you of any traffic observed near the field, or if they see no traffic near the field. (E.g. I’ve heard it like this: “xyz airport is at your 12 o’clock and 10 miles, radar services terminated, squawk VFR, change to advisory frequency approved, no traffic observed between you and the field.”)
ATC will also terminate service if you go below radar coverage or beyond radio range, but that’s less likely to occur on VATSIM, at least until we simulate the effects of terrain on radar and VHF signal propagation.
And since flight following is provided on a workload-permitting basis, they can terminate service at any time.
Most of the time ATC asks me if I have the field in sight. If I reply I do they cancel it. I don’t think I ever cancelled it first. The busier the controller is the further away they cancel the flight following in my experience. Not sure about controllers on VATSIM. Never flew with a flight following on VATSIM. I am speaking about RW ATC in the US