Most AIPs that I’ve looked at ask for a position report when crossing a border. Having said that, in practice, nobody seems to care.
Which AIP section would this be in?
ENR 1.1 (General Rules), I would say.
Not flight planning, Jan, with a VFR flight plan. Everything has to do with it. Iam under no obligation to state my departure or destination within Schengen and it is just asked when Icross the borders in a plane. It has anything to do with Schengen.
What good does the VFR flight plan outside of airspace where you don’t need any form of clearance in the first place? SAR obiously isn’t a reason, since it isn’t needed for a flight within the borders and in the Alps it can be much more hazadous than flying from Germany to Belgium or the Netherlands. You aren’t in any system anyway, and noone is expecting you on the basis of a VFR flight plan, it’s just useless data. FIS is usually useless, unless you need information (i.e. WX or airspace related) or help with navigation.
So why a VFR flight plan?
mh wrote:
it isn’t needed for a flight within the borders and in the Alps it can be much more hazadous
Indeed, a flight plan in the alps is not required, but they strongly recommend you to file one for SAR purposes (not that anyone cares…) so that is IMO a weak argument. A better argument would be that it’s unlikely for any of the accident responders to even look at a flight plan in relatively densely populated areas.
But I agree that VFR flight plans are pretty much useless and get lost or misaddressed most of the time anyway…
@mh : I do agree, too, that VFR flight plans are rather useless. My point is that they are equally useless inside or outside the Schengen area, so please do not mention Schengen. Schengen is about abolishing identity checks at border crossings, nothing more.
As for the Alps: I believe a flight plan must be submitted for any flight from France or Germany or Austria or Switzerland to Italy, VFR included.
mh wrote:
You aren’t in any system anyway, and noone is expecting you on the basis of a VFR flight plan, it’s just useless data. FIS is usually useless, unless you need information (i.e. WX or airspace related) or help with navigation.So why a VFR flight plan?
As so often – it depends. In Spain and Portugal you are very much in the system with a VFR flight plan and will be handed over from one ATC unit to the next who will be expecting you.
Schengen has nothing to do with flight planning. Schengen comes to play to decide if you need immigration on your departure/arrival. Flight plan rules are given by AIP of individual states and you need to comply with both. In the extreme case you are not required to have FPL from the country you are departing but you need to have one in the destination country. But usually it´s symmetrical. See other discussion on this here, I can´t find it right now.
Peter – never done it for that route, rarely talk to London coming back. Interestingly within the last two weeks Lille are back on the scene seemingly hoping you talk to them before L2K – no idea why, but hey. You will do very well getting hold of Paris North – I have tried over the years rarely (but not never) with success, but you will always get Lille, not that until recently they wanted to talk to you after about a 5 or 6 year gap, when that long ago they also seemed more keen to have a chat.
Draw a straight line to Ost., and I go straight to them in the same way, never been a problem.
Going to Eire, again similiar direct route to Waterford, and I have found Waterford itself to be the best initial point of contact.
Jersey on the other hand or the CI’s in general and its always been Jersey Zone which is a necissity anyway for entry into what is now their class D so its the only option.
Thinking about it, I havent done any difference for any of the French coastal destinations south of Jersey, or going “down” to places such as Le Mans.
Perhaps of course all strictly wrong – but no one seems to worry from an operational point of view.
I cant think of many occasions of finding the need to talk to London Info when returning from any of these destinations – I would always opt for a radar or Lars service in the first instance anyway, but thats just me.
To provide another datapoint, when I flew to Bragança LPBG, about 7NM from the Spanish border, from Biarritz, I was unable to contact Lisboa Information.
Bragança AFIS just called them to close the FPL after landing.
So just closing the FPL seems to be the only requirement.
I am wondering about LECD (for the May fly-in) : I plan to fly in and out via the Cerdagne valley.
Can I get in and out without calling Barcelona 121,150 ? How can I close my FPL after landing ?
Can French FIS activate an FPL departing in Spain ?
