Offchocks,
You've provided a very important factor: "Transition Level by ATC". A brief review of European approaches indicates that for descents/STAR's and approaches, all transition levels are "As assigned". This includes:
Schiphol, Dublin, Frankfurt, Glasgow, London LHR, Madrid, Manchester, Milan, Munich, Paris, Rome, Shannon, Zurich.
All SID's/departure have a transition altitude.
Oddly enough, Tel Aviv is opposite: Transition Level is specified on the STAR (F115) and approach plates, whereas transition altitudes are "As assigned" for all SID's except for DEENA, PURLA and SOLIN (10500 feet). Can someone confirm this? I'm not using Jeppesen. Larnaca, just next door, is like Europe above.
I found a reference to your statement:
"if you are cleared an altitude from a flight level you then set the QNH on starting descent"
in case of a transition level assigned by ATC;
and this would have been taken from the UK AIP. References that I have to other European AIP's seems conflicting, although all European airports above have transition levels assigned by ATC.
Can anyone who is familiar with other European AIP's confirm that the quote above applies equally to the other European airports mentionned above?
The ICAO PANS-RAC, in the section about altimeter setting procedures, doesn't refer to this specifically. Only when a turbine aircraft has been cleared for an approach when still above the transition level, can it refer it's altitude to QNH. Does anyone know of another ICAO reference that alludes to the situation above?
Thanks,
Scud