Are ATC entitled to question pilot qualifications and equipment?

That is one of the wonders of UK aviation

Absolutely 👍🏻
For once the UK offers a simple and honest system, how come the rest of European countries can’t follow suit? Too proud, and too stupid, national prides topped by national interests…

MichaLSA wrote:

And what is customs and border police saying to a grass strip in the middle of nowhere?

That is one of the wonders of UK aviation. You can fly to a completely remote grass strip provided you file a GA x hours before departure to inform the Border Force. I usually email the Border Force directly as well just to be on the safe side. In over 10 years of flying into the grass strip here from ex UK (well over 100 times), the authorities have never bothered to meet me. It is fantastic.

Buckerfan wrote:

I think it puzzles them that an aircraft flying non-stop from say Slovenia or Croatia and cruising at FL260 at 250kts TAS can be heading to a grass strip.

And what is customs and border police saying to a grass strip in the middle of nowhere?

The one I get asked all the time by ATC when flying back to home base from Europe is “what is your destination”. This happens when flying back to the farm strip in the UK. The flight plan has the destination as ZZZZ as there is no ICAO code and I do add a remark explaining that “Dest is Upper Harford Private Site, 15NM east of EGBJ”. But on every such flight I get asked at least once and sometimes on virtually every handover.

I think it puzzles them that an aircraft flying non-stop from say Slovenia or Croatia and cruising at FL260 at 250kts TAS can be heading to a grass strip.

Peter wrote:

would regard that Q as innocent, and is often used if you ask for a shortcut which cuts a corner off their MRVA, and they don’t want the form filling if you hit some granite

Yes, exactly. I had that on departure close to the Vosges mountains the other day… Asked if I’m VMC, affirm, gives me a climb and a nice direct to enroute point. Didn’t tell me to maintain VMC… but on a hunch, I called back a few seconds before entering IMC with that information, and the clearance was immediately amended to go back to the IFR departure route “recommended” in the AIP (not exactly technically a published SID), and direct enroute point after passing XXXX ft in the climb.

I haven’t flown much GA in contqct with ATC but the once they did ask for my capabilities.
On the 1st leg of a planned 7-10 day trip around France but the weather window was very small to depart and of course we didn’t manage to leave on time.
We already turned back to our home airfield but i didn’t like the terrain and the low clouds so i decided to clinb into the clouds and to divert to the big controlled airport.
The controller asked if i was able to fly IFR. And I didn’t lie when I said I was rated on the 737.
The plane didn’t havr his IFR check and my IR is only valid in multi engine, multi pilot operations.

At that moment the question didn’t bother me and it actually made me feel safer they were looking out for me.
We were also the only plane on Brussels info that day. If we could have left on time we would have had an awesome trip

In the US, ATC doesn’t have easy access to the equipment one filed. The original FAA domestic filing system was based on single character slash codes for equipment, like /G means a mode A/C transponder and GPS enroute/terminal capability. /U is VOR, no DME, with A/C transponder. /L is RVSM, GPS capable, Mode A/C transponder. So when ICAO equipment codes came along, they were translated in the ATC software to their equivalent slash code that is displayed to the controller. I understand that the centers will in the near future (years?) get away from the slash codes, but the terminal controllers systems will still be using them. That means that the controller doesn’t know that you are capable of flying an RNAV (GPS) approach, much less that you can use LPV minimums. So there are questions asked in the normal course of events regarding equipment.

It has happened a few times when flying longer distances above 5000 ish feet, the ATC asks if I’m flying IFR. My answer is always no Once in Sweden, 5-10 minutes before landing after being in contact with Sweden control for about an hour, the next ATC asks: Do you have a transponder? I became a bit confused, since the transponder had been on all the time, and still was on with the correct squawk. I just answered Affirm. Then she said: would you mind turning it on? After some more short messages, I turned the transponder off then on again, and she could see me. A Trig Transponder. Have seen the problem later also, intermittent, and it sometimes shows up on the display that transmitting power is low, or something. Sometimes re-booting it helps, sometimes it doesn’t. Haven’t really investigated, but perhaps some antenna/power issue, poor connection ? I’m sure the ATC has another cause for this problem in their minds

Not really on topic, but my best ATC interaction along these lines was flying VFR from Palo Alto to Lake Tahoe.

The controller asked, “Do you have the train in sight?”

I started looking for the railway line which I knew as somewhere underneath me, which goes through the Donner Pass of evil repute. Then I realised that probably what he meant was “terrain”. Which indeed I did.