Vortex,
I am sure you have your reasons, most of them I can relate to. I don't doubt that you have safety as your primary goal.

As an ICAO member state, if you you want to update or improve certain terminology, in particular English being your language, then you should present your findings to ICAO, convince them through the normal channels, and publish to the rest of world the latest recommendations. The rest of us will follow.

I don't know the numbers, but there a lot of foreign airplanes flying in your airspace. Surely you can appreciate the advantages of all the pilots and ATCs around the world using the same terminology, following and expecting the same procedures and standards.

An ATC facility is a service provider. As such you should listen to your customers, local and foreign. I get the impression some ATCs, in particular the ones who have never left their turf, seem so adamant that their ways are the best, and as long as you are in my airspace you must do what I say. This may be an exaggeration, but I have actually come across ppl like that, not necessarily in the UK though.

Short to medium operators in Europe can fly to a number of countries in a day.
You can not expect them to study the differences of each country.

By the way some other countries do opt to vary from the ICAO recommendations. It is just causing to the confusion and non standard phraseology used by different nationalities & various accents in English.

I am not arguing your comments, I am just presenting my opinion.
Have a nice day.

Apologizing in advance for my ignorance of the nuances of British practices, I have a couple of questions secondary to this hoary old thread.

1. Assuming one has filed and accepted an IFR clearance, and initiated flight, how is it that it ceases to be an IFR flight without the pilot canceling IFR? Surely the controllers cannot unilaterally cancel IFR for the pilot?

2. My interpretation of the OP's story was not that he exited controlled airspace by choice, but rather, that he was vectored out of the controlled airspace by the controllers; am I missing something?

3. Is radar coverage that poor over the UK?

4. Why so many squawk codes? I can fly across the country here on one code, two at most.

---

Perhaps I have been spoiled (spoilt) by US ATC, but in my jaunts about the country (mostly in my Bonanza), I have been treated with complete professionalism by both approach and Center controllers, and from the discussion in this thread, I have the impression that the UK controllers seem to regard non-turbojet traffic as needless irritants. Educate me, as I intend to fly to and around Europe some time soon.

Thanks in advance.

The UK doesn't have blanket Class E, unlike the US. Except for around some controlled airports it's mostly either Class A, or Class G. Class A isn't a blanket overlying Class E - a fair bit of it consists of corridors along air routes down to the lower altitudes.

In class G you can be IFR to your heart's content. There is no regulatory requirement to talk to anyone. Not being controlled airspace, there isn't a controller, only a Flight Information Service available. Think along the lines of 'Inside CTA' or 'Outside CTA' and never the twain shall meet. Once you hit Class G airspace while enroute you are no longer 'in' CTA therefore no longer have an IFR clearance 'in' CTA. A new clearance must be obtained for the next bit of CTA you wish to fly in.

Doesn't mean you are no longer IFR though. You're IFR in Class G as long as you adhere to IFR. Conversely, you're VFR in Class G as long as you adhere to VFR. Curiously, you could yo-yo IFR-VFR-IFR-VFR as frequently as you like as long as at each change you adjust your mindset and follow the appropriate set of rules.

On the subject of multiple transponder codes; units operating services outside controlled airspace are assigned a block of codes each; they will issue you with one of these to A) identify you and B) indicate to other units who it is you are talking to.
As regards being asked your full details when transferring to the next unit; your flight plan will only go to the relevant ATCC(s) and your destination, it will not be passed to en-route units outside CAS unless you specifically ask for it to be addressed to them.

Is this island really that big that the entire thing can't be one big controlled airspace above a reasonable altitude, so that once you've entered the IFR system you're in it until you leave the island?

It is Class C above FL195, if that's classed as a reasonable altitude ? ;)

Just spotted the original thread for the first time...

What happened to that pilot is not unusual, for the UK system.

It can happen to anybody, and continues to happen.

The simplest way to guard against it is by filing a flight level which is totally obviously decisively in controlled airspace. Hard to give guidelines on what this means (I was told by one ATCO that the rules are in a confidential ATC document) but FL120+ ought to do the job. If you file at lower levels (e.g. FL090 like the OP) then there is a possibility of getting dropped out of CAS, or even the flight plan getting dumped on sight by e.g. London Control.

In Europe, ATC will normally clearly advise traffic asking for shortcuts that one is about to leave CAS. In the UK this often doesn't happen; one can get transferred to "London 124.6" and a foreigner will think nothing of it. A local will know that 124.6 is an FIS service which, in the UK, cannot support an IFR clearance, so actually your IFR clearance has been cancelled without anybody telling you.

It's also an old chestnut when flying from France to the UK where you might be in CAS across France and then transferred to "London 124.6" with the same result. The solution to that one used to be to fly at FL120+ because one is then handled by Paris Control which has the authority to transfer you to London Control and your IFR flight continues. In recent years I have seen this work down to FL100, which is an improvement...

I suspect the powers to be decided to do something about it, because having to carry and use oxygen solely to maintain an IFR clearance from France to UK is nuts :ugh:

Huge amounts of discussion have been done on this on pilot forums. Normally, ATC are less than keen to discuss it, but it continues to catch out foreign piston pilots (or UK ones who have not yet discovered the quirks) filing for non-oxygen altitudes and expecting it to "just work" because the flight plan was accepted by Eurocontrol.

Personally I file for FL120+ and that deals with the issue. One can ask for a "stop climb" if the wx is nice. But there are still parts of the UK (Scotland etc) where the base of CAS is above that, but I have found that Scottish ATC are very much better at managing the situation, whereas in the south if you drop out of CAS (in level flight) they tend to wash their hands of you and won't let you back in. US-style "pop-up" IFR clearances are almost impossible to get in the UK.

I spent 22 years flying in the US and have been based in the British Isles for the last 4 years. My observation is that because UK pilots have been flying the system their entire careers their feeling is, of course it works like that.

When I first moved here I tried to get advice from my colleagues but their assumption of my knowledge of how things worked got in the way.

In the US if you are cleared to a point, you are cleared to that point via the route in that clearance. If that route is direct then you are cleared through whatever airspace lies directly between you and that point. If you are about to enter restricted airspace it is the controllers job to give you vectors around that airspace.

On the rare occasions that you might leave controlled airspace the controllers will provide flight following or tell you when or where to contact the next controller and the frequency but your clearance through that airspace still applies.

I've had to flush that idea from my mind and realise that you need a much better understanding of the limits of a clearance. I know when I receive my clearance out of Farnborough to Guernsey that I'm not really cleared through all the airspace along the route I've filed.

Sometimes it's hard to learn about the idiosyncrasies of a counties airspace when you don't know the questions to ask.

How many people who only fly in the US occasionally know what you can do with a clearance to operate VFR on top or what it means to cruise an altitude? Would you know you could ask for and receive a clearance for a contact approach and what that means?

That's the case in all of Europe, IME.

Picking up a departure clearance which says "cleared to EGXX" doesn't mean anything; it's just a standard phrase used at airports which are located inside controlled airspace. The expectation by the ATCO passing it is that the flight will be in CAS all the way. He has no practical way of realising that e.g. at the other end of the flight is an airport which lies in Class G and/or which has no STAR and to which you are connecting with a DCT, or that the end of the flight will be de facto VFR etc etc.

The USA has a uniform airspace structure with Class E (which is CAS for IFR) from ~1200ft to 17999ft and with Class A above that, which makes it easy to work clearances. The only European country which kind of gets near that is France which tends to have Class E from FL065 to FL115 and Class D FL120-FL195, and Class A FL200+ (in very general terms). On top of that, France has a superb ATC system which is joined-up in terms of data sharing so they know about you all the way, which results in a very relaxed experience.

However, while I have never flown in the USA (except when doing the FAA IR in Arizona) I doubt that an ATC clearance from one end of the USA to the other is actually more "absolutely guaranteed" than a clearance anywhere outside the USA. ATC has a universal power to deny you progress. For IFR traffic in CAS (high altitude) such a thing is unheard of in the civilised world but I suppose the bottom line is that a RA could suddenly pop up... More likely ATC will vector you around things, and that wasn't in the departure clearance either :)

Not quite Peter. When you receive an IFR clearance in the US it will be the route to, and including, your destination - even if that's the other side of the country. It may be abbreviated with the statement 'as filed' as part of the route. If the clearance will be a major modification of the filed route then they'll forewarn you with the statement 'full route clearance'. A clearance with vectors will include a point on the route where the vectors stop and normal navigation starts.

ATC may subsequently modify things in flight, but unless that happens you have a clearance all the way to your destination. Even a modification will get you to your destination, either via a whole new route, or the modification joins the old route.

Are you sure?

It has an important meaning - that you have an initial airways clearance. If your airways join was further enroute, you'd simply get an IFR departure clearance to a direction or waypoint, without the "cleared to EGXX" wording.

Dunno, in germany everything above 2500ft AGL (lower around controlled airports) is class E and everything above FL100 is C, FL130 at the alps. Class A or B isn't used though. That's still enough to enable IFR services outside of any kind of airways. The old corridor system was used within eastern germany of course, but that was over 20 years ago. Anyway, the airway structure is so dense that one is always around some airway, but usually not on it since one flies on some kind of direct clearance.

Yes; I thought I forgot Germany. It's a long time since I flew there VFR...
I still think that works primarily because in the USA you are assured of being in CAS all the way.

But there must be a difference because from what you say ATC would not clear you for a route on which you didn't have obstacle clearance, whereas here in Europe it is perfectly possible to file a Eurocontrol flight plan (using hacks like a series of DCTs, etc) which passes through terrain, and the departure clearance will still "clear you to destination".

Does the ATC in the USA have a means of checking the MSA/MOCA etc for your filed route, at a glance?

There is also an interesting ambiguity there. Here in Europe, once you are "cleared to", if you subsequently suffer a comms failure, you are entitled to fly the filed route and land (at the filed ETA etc etc). But if you don't suffer a comms failure, you can't necessarily do that :)

Apart from an IFR departure from an uncontrolled or no F -airspace airfield - and no IFR in uncontrolled airspace altogether.

I don't see the ambiguity to be honest... if ATC can`t reach you, then they can`t alter the clearance....

The amusing bit is that the only way the departure clearance is valid all the way to destination is if you have lost comms :)

Speaking of Germany, where IFR OCAS is banned, I wonder how pilots work departures from VFR-only airports when the cloudbase is a bit low... and Germany has AFAIK prosecuted some people for various versions of illegal VFR.

me too...the procedure is called VIFR and is quite unofficial... ;)

Well, the question is always WHO determines VFR or visibility and cloud height... if there is not a meteorologist or the equivalent, then the proof is hard to find (of departing IFR).

However this issue is a pretty annoying one and just why the German ATC is so against it (and has been against it for man, many years -> my dad was a german ATCO) I don´t know. IFR in uncontrolled airspace is not a magical thing...

Peter, an IFR clearance in the US will always include 'expect {insert final altitude here} in one zero minutes'. If contact is lost then 10 mins after airborne everyone expects you to climb to that level. If terrain is an issue at some point enroute then you are expected to climb to an appropriate cruising level above the LSALT before the relevent route segment if the LSALT is higher than the cleared altitude.

Departing into IMC from a non-controlled field that's OCTA ie outside 'E', then you can get a clearance with a 'clearance void' time from a controller. The clearance usually specifies a heading and initial altitude. Many places without VHF ATC comms have an on the ground Radio-to-phone frequency that is activated with a few transmissions. It direct-dials to the local ATC (or possibly Flight Service if an ATC phone isn't possible) so you can obtain a clearance. You can also phone for a clearance if need be although, weather permitting, I usually prefer to depart VFR and get my IFR clearance once airborne.

IFR OCTA isn't a big deal - it's common in Oz, for example.

VFR / IFR in Germany
 

I'm aware that I'm hijacking this threat across the channel, but I feel a few things need to be clarified.

This side of the channel "cleared to XYZ, route, level" means just that. You are cleared on the given routing regardless of the airspace. Outside CAS it's advisory or information only, but your clearance is valid to reenter CAS - eg. Poland, Sweden, Hungary, and also Germany. In theory you could have a Comm-Failure after receiving the take-off clearance and still continue in and out of CAS.

Germany does not permit IFR in airspace G. It has nothing to do with ATC. It's a political thing from over 60 years back, we are all used to it and nobody bothers changing it. Hence the dreaded airspace F, which is not CAS, btw. In return the VMC minima for airspace G are ridiculously low (1500m and clear of clouds).

With an acknowledged IFR clearance those minima may be applied to airspace E until reaching the minimum IFR level. Even though it's seldomly done you could call ACC by phone, get your clearance, and depart a VFR airfield clear of clouds and be IFR somewhere between 2000 and 3000ft AGL depending on the airspace. May not be nice but works and is legal for most conditions. (Works in a similar manner the other way around)

Ok, now back to the island. I'm eager to learn more about the system there.

Regards,
FR

My understanding (from German bizjet pilots) is that they depart into IMC from VFR-only airports, with IFR in Class G banned, but have to be careful to not enter IMC too near the airport because somebody might see them ;)

Apparently the procedure is called "IVFR" :)

What was the reasoning for no IFR in Class G?