Right this has got the hair up on a few ATCO's.
I will state now i would prefer to give the full story to all concerned. But.......
My comments are made only towards GA problems.
But as a commander of a I belive the word is TONK. You are stuffed. And as Jerricko states I would much prefer everone to be in the picture and all working together as a team.
But if the commander arrives and gets a service which he dosn't want and then has local restrictions about departure because of a problem which the airport manager (without a PPL or bugger all) thinks he knows more about than the ANO than you do, and then when he gets proved wrong he states a local rule which he can't produce. You are shafted.
I don't disagree its in your manual to upgrade as you see fit but...
The more you do it without the captains knowledge the more "peter calls wolf" will occur and you will be kept out of the loop until the !!!!e hits the fan.
And BTW it is so obvious when you have a problem when talking to ATC when the controller flys as well. "Rodger are you OK m8"
"aye vac pump has gone remaining VFR" "Rodger" jobs a goodun.
You do realise that your MATS part 1 actually contradics the pilot training which states that the aircraft commander declares the status of their flight, which is defined in the ANO. As far as Iam aware MATS part 1 is not defined in law in the UK.
MJ
And to answer yes i do speak to ATC. And i have checked out maybe 4 ATCO's in my time as an instructor including PPrune Radar who I hope would agree i am not a gash **** in the air in GA. And suprisingly they have more altenative views than i do like tatical mode C and talking back to radar controllers which I wouldn't hold with . And no doudt the Edi girls will give me heaps of abuse in a few weeks on my views on a night on the lash in Stirling.