Originally Posted by magbreak
I would question tu154's advice on flight plans. We have been told to file flight plans for EVERY flight. be it from airport to airport, or farmers field to farmers field and VFR or IFR. booked in advance!!)
That may be what you were told, but couldn't be further from the truth.
There is no requirement to file a flight plan whatsoever in Class G, including farmers field to farmers field.
This perception may have arisen as ATC at the 'regional' airports used to be a bit sticky about transting/entering their airspace without a flight plan filed by phone an hour beforehand, and there may have been the odd bollicking, for no justified reason I can think of.
When active they are Class C, which is whacky given there is no such requirement at many UK airfields that are an order of magnitude more busy. I've never had a problem over the air 10 minutes before. In any case they are such a small percentage of the Irish airspace, you can easily avoid unless you don't want to.
Edited to say: If departing from a Class C airport, then of course you would need to file beforehand.