Class C and D Airways - Caernarfon to Eglinton

Aveling, what I'm trying to say is that if you've REQUESTED for a DEPARTURE to the EAST at 4500ft and that clearance was GRANTED, then you could have flown a route that took you from the CTR, to the CTA and then onto L975.

Parts of L975 is within UK airspace but is delegated to Dublin. You then exit the airway as the base rises and its class changes from C to A.

There is no clearance under VFR - except for the immediate bit of CAS you have been explicitly given.

(Unless it's France, where they don't seem to worry, once you are in radio and radar contact, because presumably they know your route, etc).

Under Eurocontrol IFR (not the sort of IFR one does in UK Class G) one has an implicit whole-route clearance.

(Unless somebody has screwed up, e.g. French ATC handing you over to "London 124.6" instead of London Control - this is a classic).

I don't know about the clearance limit which isn't explicitly stated but Dublin can't clear you into UK airspace. They always dump you about 10 mi W of the FIR boundary with the 'wrong' London Info frequency 124.75 which doesn't work W of Snowdon. Usually you call Valley, or if closed London Info North.

I don't think any continuing clearance is implied. Maybe it's different under IFR?

Where exactly was your clearance limit when you were with Dublin? If you were cleared to leave their airspace to the east at say 4500ft, then clearance onto the airway is implied, as the airspace is contiguous, or else they will instruct you to remain clear.

if you're already high enough you should be nicely taken into that airway.

Not for me. I was high enough, and with the delay in getting the clearance frequency, I'd have crossed the boundary slap bang into it without a clearance if I'd continued. I don't think Dublin would have intervened, but I don't know that.

I was not prepared with the Scottish frequency because I'd mistakenly been fobbed off with the tale about how it's delegated to Dublin anyway, which it isn't. I don't know if the Scottish frequency appears on the S England map.

Coming out of Weston routeing Holyhead in April, I asked the ever helpful Dublin if they could get me a clearance through L975. Not only could they not do this, but there was some scrabbling around looking for a frequency before they came back

No idea how this happens. For a departure to the east from Weston, you request for clearance through the Dublin CTR, and if you're already high enough you should be nicely taken into that airway.

When this ridiculous piece of airspace was created, some of us who protested about being forced down to 3,500' in the middle of Irish Sea were fobbed off with the assurance that it's class C, not A, and that it would be delegated to Dublin anyway. Not so.

Coming out of Weston routeing Holyhead in April, I asked the ever helpful Dublin if they could get me a clearance through L975. Not only could they not do this, but there was some scrabbling around looking for a frequency before they came back with Scottish Control, as if no-one ever asked that before. (I did not contact Scottish because by the time that Dublin came up with the frequency I was already at the boundary).

This is not a problem if D201 is cold because a small deviation to the S will do it, but unusually on this day D201B was Hot, and I ended up crossing the sea at 3000'. In my view this is a definite and completely unneccesary hazard to life on a day when good VFR existed at 5000' and above. It would be good to know if anyone actually has obtained a VFR clearance through this piece of bureacracy, sorry I mean 'Airspace'.

If it's class C then the chances are it's delegated to Dublin.

I've been cleared into those airways before VFR, but it will depend on how busy they are. They do then to want to keep you out of controlled airspace, but always worth asking.