IFR in the UK

[Fuji Abound]

are there any decent books that talk about UK/EU IFR for small planes?

Nah, 'cse it is easy really (if not ideal);

1. Outside CAS (open FIR, most of the UK low level), do what you what, when you want, how you want (albeit do please fly at the correct level if IFR / IMC). You may get a service from someone, get hold of a LARS map which will tell you who to ask and when they are open. You dont need to file anything and you dont even need to squawk anything, but if IMC please squawk 7000 mode C for me at least so I can see you on TAS,

2. Anything that is class D, ask for a transit, but dont assume it is guaranteed especially if it is called Gatwick, Stansted, or Manchester,

3. If you want to fly airways then the rules are sort of the same as the rest of the world - you will get handovers, and a seamless service, but expect to go around the houses, and unlike the rest of the world if you arrive at the incorrect level or cant maintain the required level expect to get unceremonioulsy dumped.

Always remember it is a little country without much money so we have to do everything on the cheap and tell everyone our airspace is very conjested so the commoners dont get above their station and expect too much.

Simples really.

Sorry I do not agree-I would rather spend 17 hours

Me to, and therefore I do agree with you, but I would rather not be sitting on that mountain wondering why I had filed and no one has bothered to come and find me - which is my point.

I have come back from Europe twice this year, filed before I left, but there was no plan when I arrived back so if I had ditched on the way on the basis of the plan alone no one would have known.

[Pull what]

UK IFR is starting to sound a very black art...are there any decent books that talk about UK/EU IFR for small planes?

UK IFR is very simple-its pilots who start off VFR and mid way discover a cloud with a hard centre that have the problems!

[Katamarino]

Thanks Fuji; on my next flight into UK airspace I might try it, and see how it goes...

[ShyTorque]

Unfortunately, UK LARS used to be a joined up system but now there are some large gaps in radar cover. Without radar cover, all that can be expected is a basic service, often from a distant ground unit, such as London or Scottish Information. Hence my earlier point that it makes little difference whether a written flight plan was filed or not. A basic service can however be used to good advantage for SAR purposes, should the worst happen (keeping up to date with accurate position reports is what I mean).

I would rather remain in "live" R/T contact than rely on a written flight plan which is at best a summary of my proposed route, on a piece of paper in someone's in tray and which may or may not be of use afterwards.

[Wrong Stuff]

Originally Posted by Katamarino

UK IFR is starting to sound a very black art...are there any decent books that talk about UK/EU IFR for small planes?

Katamarino - yes, the PPL/IR group recently got some of their members to each write a chapter on their area of interest or expertise. It's called "European Instrument Pilot" - a Google search for that phrase will turn up a couple of stockists. Or I guess it's available direct from PPL/IR Europe.

Also it's well worth joining the PPL/IR Europe group - their forum is haunted by pilots with lots of practical experience of IFR around Europe and questions posted there get well-informed answers, rather than the usual ill-informed opinion you often see elsewhere.

[IO540]

The key to understanding the UK ways of doing things is to understand that the system is privatised, and the only services available to GA are

- those mandatory under ICAO (basically just a FIS e.g. London Information)

- those maintained to keep some kind of lid on the rate of serious CAS busts which cause high profile airline / political annoyance

The UK allows fully non-radio flight in Class G and this includes IFR. This means it is 100.000% legal, with an IR or an IMCR, to bore a hole in cloud from Lydd to Aberdeen without talking to anybody. Some people will say this is not wise without a radar service, etc, etc, but the stats on IMC mid-airs are more or less exactly zero, zilch, nil.

This great freedom fits well with the privatised services. If the UK had e.g. the US or French style of Class E enroute airspace, and thus required an IFR clearance in this airspace, somebody would have to pay the ATCO salaries, and ATCOs are not cheap. A fully costed radar-qualified ATCO desk cannot be less than 100k euros a year.

If we had the services, given the privatised ATC, we would have route charges for VFR traffic, etc.

And if the UK adopted the Class E airspace, all the pilots currently boring holes in Class G IMC would be boring them in Class E IMC, illegally but undetectably, and I am sure this goes on a lot in France (by the French, as well as everybody else flying in France) and no doubt this is why we have the seemingly permanent notam saying there will be no VFR in the Class D airspace (FL115-FL195) over a vast area of France. I know a big turboprop driver who used to fly "VFR" there at FL195 and saved himself a bundle in route charges.

Which would you rather have? I think the UK system is OK.

I would bet that the vast majority of people who go missing off a flight planned VFR flight have their wreckage discovered nowhere hear their filed route, because they were scud running between hills, or got lost in IMC.

What gets up my nose is the other stuff (like mandatory ATC for approaches, which looks likely to make GPS approaches for ever irrelevant to the vast majority of GA) but that's another story.

IFR in Europe (the stuff you do with an IR) is a whole different topic, with its own tips, hints, gotchas, etc. Anybody interested in some links, drop me an email...

[Fuji Abound]

Unfortunately, UK LARS used to be a joined up system but now there are some large gaps in radar cover.

Yes, I am afraid I remember those days.

On the other hand down south the expansion of Farnborough is welcome, albeit I notice more often than not these days they are unable to offer a service due to staff shortages.

I would like to see more facilities "encouraged" to provide a LARS service as the military gradually fall away. For example Bournemouth has done so for many years, and very effective it is to.

I am particularly unhappy that NATS are able to charge so much for a radar feed. I was reliably told that the current cost of a feed is in excess of £100K pa with other intiial set up costs. This means that facilities that would be willing, able and qualified to provide a service either dont or must fund the cost of their own head rather than use those funds to provide the service.

For example Southend pays for their own radar head, whereas they could take a feed from NATS that would provide better cover than. The same is true of Manston where I think they are still using a second hand head that is forever going tec. It is nonesense; NATS should be compelled by the CAA to make this data available to qulaified and willing service providers.

Take a few moments to visit the tower at Calais and see how well this can work. The ATCO takes a feed from Lille and although he is not qualified to provide an approach service (which is handled by Lille) he can see all the traffic in the vicinity.

[mm_flynn]

Originally Posted by Fuji Abound

I am particularly unhappy that NATS are able to charge so much for a radar feed. I was reliably told that the current cost of a feed is in excess of £100K pa with other intiial set up costs. This means that facilities that would be willing, able and qualified to provide a service either dont or must fund the cost of their own head rather than use those funds to provide the service.

You can see why a private company (styled as operating in a competitive marketplace) would object to having to provide its key competitive advantage (having the nation wide radar infrastructure) to competitors at marginal cost (which would be pretty close to zero).

IMHO this was a major bo!!ock the UK government dropped when establishing the licence conditions and terms of reference for privatising ATC. We are now stuck in a particularly inefficient and arguably less safe system where less radar service is available and more heads, not integrated, and with maintenance issues are operated than necessary.

[Fuji Abound]

I can - but one could hope that the Government's golden share and mandate from the CAA would be sufficient to pull the necessary strings if they thought fit to do so.

[IO540]

This simply isn't going to happen. Nobody in the UK is going to spend a penny on anything for GA unless there is a financial case for it (and let's hope there never is because that would mean route charges for all) or a serious safety case favouring passenger transport (GA safety is not going to count for anything much).

What one needs to get one's head round is that flying on your own is actually perfectly possible. ATC hand-holding is not required. Get yourself a decent GPS, fly around the CAS, and you don't need anybody else.

The things which are worth banging on about are some details which appear to be the way they are due to outdated working practices, and those could presumably be improved. But the main issues you can forget.

[Roffa]

The things which are worth banging on about are some details which appear to be the way they are due to outdated working practices, and those could presumably be improved.

And they are?

[IO540]

Like a good lawyer, you never ask a question unless you already know the answer, and since this has been done to death, I am not taking your bait

[Roffa]

Well if you're not going to justify your stance perhaps you could stop routinely trotting it out.

[ShyTorque]

So now the en-route facility has received my plan, there could be increased probability of transits, which could involve the handing out of various slot times?

One of my nightmares would be flying VFR to arrive at the boundary a huge block of CAS somewhere in Southern Europe to request for transit and then being asked to remain outside for an unreasonable time because the controllers there are far too busy looking after other flight planned aircraft (but instead tossed mine in the bin).

Therefore I would have to turn back or to go right out of my way to get around it, costing both time and fuel. Fortunately nothing like this has happened to me yet, but I have heard stories.

VFR traffic will never gain priority over IFR, written flightplan or not. Also, if you submitted a VFR flightplan, do you think it's realistic to actually expect to make a VFR "slot time"? Can you plan and fly a VFR flight to southern Europe to the minute?

I think your aspirations are unrealistic.

[Pace]

This may explain slot times a bit

Air traffic flow management - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I tend to agree VFR traffic will never be given priority over IFR other than in an emergency and is little regarded in the scheme of things and a VFR flight plan is of little safety value.

Better to route so that ideally you get radar coverage or are talking to someone for the whole trip.

Pace

[fuzzy6988]

Can you plan and fly a VFR flight to southern Europe to the minute?

No, but I don't think one can do it with IFR either? I was thinking of slot "windows" rather than specific times "to the minute".

I tend to agree VFR traffic will never be given priority over IFR

Ok - but why? VFR + IFR flights are both flights where one needs to go from A to B, are they not?

flying on your own is actually perfectly possible. ATC hand-holding is not required. Get yourself a decent GPS, fly around the CAS, and you don't need anybody else.

I don't deny this - but my understanding was that ATC is there to separate me from traffic which I cannot see. If you ask anyone who is interested in IMC flying - they would probably ask how ATC could help them. Maybe that's why some countries figured out there is indeed a safety advantage and therefore introduced Class-E.

At the end of the day, I do think funding has to come out of the public purse in which all of us have contributed significant amounts of tax.

Maybe not right now though as we know the state of deficit the government is in.

But maybe sometime in future when the public are better informed as to how GA serves this country's economy and its communities. It is not just for leisure and entertainment.

[bookworm]

No, but I don't think one can do it with IFR either? I was thinking of slot "windows" rather than specific times "to the minute".

The fact of the matter is that IFR flights are regulated and VFR flights are not. There are no airspace-based slots for VFR flights, therefore a flightplan is not needed to secure one. While IFR FPLs for flights entirely outside controlled airspace are sent to CFMU anyway, it doesn't achieve anything from an ATFM point of view, and arguably complicates matters.

I don't deny this - but my understanding was that ATC is there to separate me from traffic which I cannot see. If you ask anyone who is interested in IMC flying - they would probably ask how ATC could help them. Maybe that's why some countries figured out there is indeed a safety advantage and therefore introduced Class-E.

Class E sounds like a "happy compromise" answer, but in fact the advantage is illusory. The idea of mandating an ATC service in IMC but not VMC sinks or swims on the efficacy of see-and-avoid in VMC. Even at GA speeds, see-and-avoid is effective in avoiding only a low proportion of potential collisions -- most are avoided simply by having low traffic density in the airspace and at the time in question. Thus when you follow through the logic, providing separation services between flights that elect to use them, regardless of weather conditions, is the best compromise.

[IO540]

VFR + IFR flights are both flights where one needs to go from A to B, are they not?

You are asking reasonable questions - the sort I used to ask when doing my PPL - but there is a lot of underlying "politics" which ensures that VFR will always be VFR i.e. ad hoc and with no guarantee of anything.

It is indeed true that if every country operated its airspace purely in accordance with the ICAO airspace classifications (meaning all airspace is open to VFR, except Class A, subject to an ATC clearance which should never be refused except for genuine reasons of traffic density or - a bit more controversial, this one - controller workload) then one would not need an IR for a great deal of European touring. I have just been down to Crete and am now most of the way back, and so far I have logged less than 10 mins of instrument time! There was plenty of IMC around but one only transits it, and then flies above it. And the IMC could have been avoided altogether, with a more careful timing. And anyway everybody knows that "VFR" in IMC goes on and will always be undetectable unless you pick a really stupid place to do it.

But this is an illusion because the whole substantially deregulated "VFR machine" hangs on the ability of ATC to utter the magic words "remain outside controlled airspace". If ATC lost this option, hell would break loose and VFR flying would be as tightly regulated (with all the part-ATPL exam crap, the gold plated checkrides, annual checkrides, etc) as IFR flying is in Europe today. And the basic PPL would not be accessible to the majority of today's VFR pilots.

In many cases and in many places, ATC uses this "remain OCAS" option to screw around with VFR traffic for no reason whatever. Not a big issue in the UK, and not a big issue in much of N Europe. I have flown VFR, VMC on top, right through Brussels airspace at FL085, with Brussels Departures giving me vectors... But try further south and you can get some sudden spanners thrown in the works. I used to tour VFR 2003-2005, all the way down to Crete too.

If VFR was to get any kind of assured airspace access, all the airline pilot and ATC representatives would crawl out of the woodwork and would be all over this, and you could forget the relatively free and easy VFR system we now have.

[Fuji Abound]

Lets be clear, so far as the UK is concerned, you can go everywhere VFR, or IFR outside CAS.

You may or may not get a service.

There will be days when you wish you had gone airways on top of the weather.

That aside, you can go when you want, how you want, and not talk to anyone the length and breadth of the country. The further north you go the higher you can go; the same is true of the west country.

You can route around every bit of class D if you like and it will not add much to your journey.

Simple really.

The same is true of France except strictly there is no IMC without IFR without an IR without an airways clearance, while in the UK you only need an IMCr and to stay outside class A (and class D unless you have a clearance).

[Roffa]

At the end of the day, I do think funding has to come out of the public purse in which all of us have contributed significant amounts of tax.

Given the announcement just made in the budget that argument re NATS' finances is even less relevant now than it was before.

Or I suppose you could get all of GA to club together to buy the remaining shares then you can dictate whatever you want.