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FIKI certification in Europe - what does it mean?

Malibuflyer wrote:

As EASA says (rightfully in my opinion) on such a flight you have still to have a plan to keep you out of icing (and not only to get you out of it) while doing the practical flying. Not entering visible moisture in the critical temperature ranges is one of such plans.

How is that possible? Does that mean that in Northern-ish Europe you can’t fly IMC in winter?

EGTR

arj1 wrote:

Does that mean that in Northern-ish Europe you can’t fly IMC in winter?

With a plane that is not certified for known icing and a layer that is at a temperature band where you have to expect icing, obviously not!

But let’s turn the question around: Is there any possible interpretation of “known icing” that would imply that to find icing within IMC at -10deg OAT is “surprising” and therefore not know?

Germany

Ibra wrote:

Most of the time PPL is reminded to stay 1000ft from clouds but you can’t enforce that on the ground on the basis that the aircraft or the pilot is “VFR only”?

I am sure the VMC rules do not mean you can’t fly on PPL if low clouds/visibility are “expected” or “forecasted”,

It is the very same for non IR rated pilots and IMC as it is for non FIKI rated planes and icing:

Obviously you can commence a flight through an area where clouds are present and you have to expect them. You, however, need a plan for how to avoid actually flying into these clouds. With VFR flying this plan is in most cases obviously “see and avoid” of clouds. If you, however, e.g. fly VFR on top of a larger BKN layer you need a more sophisticated plan than that.
And ye3s: There are cases where (even IFR rated) pilots got fined for lack of due diligence in flight planning when they got stuck on top of a cloud layer (or in between two layers) on a VFR flight and therefore needed an “emergency IFR pickup”.

Very same with icing: You are allowed to commence the flight even if icing is forecasted enroute but you need a plan to stay out of the ice in the first place (and not only to leave it when you are already in).

Germany

Malibuflyer wrote:

There are cases where (even IFR rated) pilots got fined for lack of due diligence in flight planning when they got stuck on top of a cloud layer (or in between two layers) on a VFR flight and therefore needed an “emergency IFR pickup”.

I’ve never heard of this. Are these cases in Germany? Could you point me towards them?

Off_Field wrote:

I’ve never heard of this. Are these cases in Germany? Could you point me towards them?

The most prominent case was when the EDDI Tempelhof airport was closed. A few planes did not get IFR slots for the last days. The weather was too bad for VFR and they more or less forced themselves into the airport with an AFIL IFR clearance without slot. But I think the fine was actually for forcing it without slot but no law did match until they came up with the flight preparation…

www.ing-golze.de
EDAZ

Thanks Sebastian,

But this seems to be a slot departure not getting stuck on top of a cloud layer.

I’ve had one or two occasions where I’ve ended up vfr on top of a layer which didn’t clear as the forecast I looked at indicated and had to divert and take an instrument approach. Getting fined for such a decision seems absolutely crazy.

eddsPeter wrote:

So as you wrote, to find instructors who know how to deal with ice practically in a small aircraft and to do it together with a student is rarely found.

I recommend looking on this site ;)

always learning
LO__, Austria

Sebastian_G wrote:

But I think the fine was actually for forcing it without slot but no law did match until they came up with the flight preparation…

That explanation sounds a bit like a stab in the back myth. But yes: The most prominent case of this was a flight to Tempelhof in 2009 that was broadly discussed in aviation press and pilot boards.

Facts are: Pilot wanted to fly to Tempelhof VFR but the ceiling was at about 1000ft with tops of the lowest layer about 2000ft. Actual weather was exactly as forecast.
Pilots managed to climb on top of this layer (in VMC as they stated uncontested) and flew 100km towards their destination on top. At that point they demanded to join IFR as they (as they stated) were not able to maintain VMC.

The fact that they did not get a slot for an IFR approach might have contributed to the pilots decision to commence the flight under VFR, but it did not at all play a role in the fine.

Off_Field wrote:

I’ve had one or two occasions where I’ve ended up vfr on top of a layer which didn’t clear as the forecast I looked at indicated and had to divert and take an instrument approach. Getting fined for such a decision seems absolutely crazy.

I couldn’t agree more – but in the cases quoted here the actual weather was exactly as forecasted. I assume everyone of us (at least the one who seriously fly VFR cross country) already experienced “getting stuck” on top of a layer. But at least in my experience this “getting stuck” has never been an “I’m running out of VFR alternatives” but always a “damn, now I have to divert 150km to be surely away from this layer”.
And it’s a huge difference if you ask ATC “Would be great to get an IFR pickup so that I could avoid a 150km detour” or if you demand “IFR pickup here and now because I’m running out of options”…

Germany

Is there an english translation of this case? I can find nothing with my internet searching.

I’m still astonished that asking for a popup ifr approach is an offence which warrants a fine. I thought the CAA were bad but that is quite something.

In my case I really didn’t have many alternatives as it was getting towards sunset and flying back up to where I had last seen the surface would have certainly put me into night time, where there aren’t all that many landing options.

One of the core German articles is this: https://www.pilotundflugzeug.de/artikel/2009-08-09/IFR_Air_Filing
Unfortunately in German.Off_Field wrote:

I’m still astonished that asking for a popup ifr approach is an offence which warrants a fine.

The fine was not warranted for asking for the approach (actually part of the story seems to be that they seemingly did not really “ask” but more demand and obviously were not willing to discuss alternatives to that very single destination airport) but that in the aftermath it became clear that given all information available to the pilots before departure it would have required a miracle if they were able to do the flight as planned.

The key to this (and some similar) cases is that the weather was exactly as forecasted. It was not one of those events, where you discover in the end of a longer flight that unfortunately the weather again has not read the forecast and therefore is unexpectedly worse.

Therefore – and that is why this case is so relevant for the FIKI discussion – they were not fined for ending up in a bad spot but they were fined for commencing a flight without having a realistic plan on how to deal with the weather they had to expect due to forecast.
Forecast said they had to expect IMC. They encountered IMC. They had no plan to avoid it. That’s illegal if you fly VFR.

Germany
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