How is it possible to be VFR on top of OVC ? Surely you entered IMC to get there, or will on the way back down. If you went through a hole then you are not IMC in the UK since it's BKN and therefore you are still "in site of surface" ?
I guess you can be VFR on top during the odd occasion (and extremely unlikely) that your destination has BKN, as does your departure, yet it's OVC in between. How often does that happen ?
Firstly, thus is a UK-only-PPL thing and no UK law defines how "broken" clouds needs to be to enable you to be legally in sight of the surface.
Secondly, it is perfectly easy to climb up in VMC, fly above an overcast for a few hundred miles, and descend in VMC. This is a fairly common profile for a flight from UK to France for example - if you pick the weather correctly. I have flown UK to Italy or Croatia, legal VFR, without seeing the surface at all from Belgium onwards and across the Alps.
I would agree it is not a fantastically useful privilege for short bimbles around the UK (not least because it is rare, in the south, to be able to climb VMC on top without busting Class A) but it does make long trips across Europe possible under legal VFR. You have to know you weather sources though, and obviously radio nav is a must.
Remember this is the worldwide default...
The eternal question is: if he has an IMCR, can he?
I have in writing from the CAA that he can. The IMCR gives you two things
- IFR for Class D-G, UK airspace only
- removal of the need to be in sight of surface for VFR (no geographical restriction)
Unfortunately these two bits are in different parts of the ANO.
This works brilliantly for long trips to the continent. Depart the UK under IFR, change to VFR by the FIR boundary, continue above the overcast, and land VFR. Then reverse the process on the way back. A great use for the IMCR.
CAA email extract from 2003:
Article 123 of the current ANO sets out the extra territorial effect
of the ANO. In the simplest of terms what it says is that what you cannot
do here in the UK, you cannot do elsewhere. That said, the holder of a
valid IMC Rating is not bound by the condition that requires the holder of a
licence without an IMC Rating to remain in sight of the surface.