If in doubt, I’d ask the radar controller to clarify, and to make sure your question and their answer is on tape, in case anyone asks later on.
Since ATC might combine or split any of their radar sectors depending on staffing and/or workload, you cannot be sure who on which frequency “owns” that airspace at a particular moment, but the radar controller you are talking to knows.
This is of course under the assumption you are flying VFR. Euro IFR, the question doesn’t arise it’s all included in the enroute clearance, and UK IFR, I have no clue of…
MATS pt1 says
but in UK CAS transits there is never IME a clearance limit given. They never IME say “you are cleared through this CAS but only until this bit”.
Never heard the above clearance limit on a CAS transit.
I have just played back a recording from yesterday and as per UK (and other custom) it says “cleared to transit controlled airspace”. It doesn’t say whose, and anyway a pilot would not know who owns which bit.
Neither of the two above is contained in UK CAS transit clearances (and even less so in French ones 
)
So… this is interesting.
This is similar (but not identical) to the infamous Barton ATZ bust case mentioned here. This is the relevant map
You can see the Barton ATZ is about 1nm away from the Manchester CAS through which the pilot got a transit. I suspect most would think this is a more obvious scenario than the above OP one and the pilot was probably caught off guard by having got the Class D transit. OTOH, like in my example in the OP, there is a reasonable expectation of coordination ahead taking place. That pilot got badly busted (to Gasco, at least) for it.
In my OP case, the Q is whether Solent would coordinate with London Control who own the LTMA. I just don’t know. My nearest experience of this is that if I file a westbound route (e.g. EGKA GWC SAM ORTAC) at some level which London Control toss out, say FL070, the departure clearance I will get out of EGKA will be Call Solent 120.225 (not London Control, because LC told Shoreham they won’t handle it) and then when I call Solent they will not give me FL070. They will give me something like 5000ft i.e. Class G, up to the point where their Class D starts and then I might have the CAS transit. This indicates that they do not have coordination with LC for the adjoining Class A.
I emphasise that Solent were excellent on this occassion and a transit at FL065 is unusual and welcome. Normally one gets maybe 4000ft and yesterday I would have got through a lot of TKS fluid doing that. Non-TKS I would have collected ~1cm of ice, which might be enough to bring down say a well loaded PA28. I just think that the way the system is set up, there would have been a CAIT alarm (or a rapid phone call from LC to Solent asking WTF is this traffic doing there) upon entering the 5500ft base Class A, and a MOR and my license would have been binned, as already discussed in the CAS busts thread. Obviously, one would engage a lawyer in such a case but at what cost? £10k? And if it doesn’t go to court you will never recover anything.
I’d ask the radar controller to clarify
Yes; very much so, but the reason I posted this is because I am pretty sure most pilots would not be sufficiently paranoid to be thinking ahead in this scenario
I see your point… It might be that I am too close to the ATC side of things.
By the way, at least over here, the ATCO himself will also have a problem, because if they let an IFR aircraft under their control approach an airspace boundary closer than 2.5 NM (or half radar separation) without coordination with the other guy, it is technically a “loss of separation” induced by them.
That’s obviously nothing desirable for an ATCO, so, in theory, all partys involved should have a vital interest in not causing any busts.
So if the other guy wants to keep his licence as well, either coordinating you through or telling you to change heading and/or altitude should be in his best interest.
Still, in this situation without an IFR enroute clearance, I’d ask and confirm.
My understanding is that a controller must initiate co-ordination with another controller before allowing you to enter their area of jurisdiction/sector.
Any failure to do this, then ATC is primarily responsible for the problem, not the pilot, although do ask if you are not sure of your clearance limits.
It’s not really for the pilot to dissect ATC sectors and second guessing who next to talk to. This information is not necessarily published to pilots anyway and can change over time.
Example procedure from FAA JO 7110.65Y (US ATC Procedures):
5−5−10. ADJACENT AIRSPACE
a. If coordination between the controllers concerned has not been effected, separate radar-controlled aircraft from the boundary of adjacent airspace in which radar separation is also being used by the following minima:
1. When less than 40 miles from the antenna− 1 1/2 miles
2. When 40 miles or more from the antenna− 2 1/2 miles
a controller must initiate co-ordination with another controller before allowing you to enter their area of jurisdiction/sector.
is not quite the same thing as
although do ask if you are not sure of your clearance limits.
especially when no explicit clearance limit is stated.
I didn’t find a corresponding “adjacent airspace” wording in MATS Pt 1. Maybe it is there somewhere. Searching for “adjacent” dig out this which again references things which a pilot would not know about
It’s funny this subject should come up as it resonates with a first for me which happened last week. I had filed a flight plan through autorouter for an IFR flight from an untowered, unmanned airfield to LFRB (Brest). I opened my flight plan with Nantes FIS at 2500 feet and was cleared direct to NTS an my chosen level of 090. This was different to my flight plan route. I was very happy with this as it was not only a shorter route but kept me away from some dark menacing clouds on my left, the freezing level was 3000 ft. After NTS I was asked if I wanted to resume my filed route or would I prefer a more direct (this was new to me) I chose the more direct. He then asked direct to where and I thought I’d be a bit cheeky and ask for ARE the IAF for Brest. He said he’d call me back and less than a minute later I was cleared to ARE at FL090.
Some time later the FIS called to say that my current track would take me through a restricted zone (R) (he did tell me which one but I have forgotten and I do not have a chart with me at the moment to look it up) Anyway the zone was active from SFC to 14000ft. I couldn’t immediately identify the zone amongst all the other zones on the GPS map so asked if he could give me a heading to avoid, he replied that I could try 10 degress right in the first place and added that it would take me OCAS. By the time I had turned right I had also identified the zone on the gps map amd was able to take my own navigation. Once I had cleared the R zone the FISO reported that I had cleared the zone and could continue direct to ARE, and contact IROiSE Approach. On contacting Iroise I was confirmed as cleared to ARE at 090 and to contact them for descent.
From being an avid reader of posts on this forum I know there will be many who will say he shouldn’t have done this or that but I was extremely happy with the service. In fact in all my IFR flying and in most of my vfr flying I have had what I consider to be great service from ATS, even when going Exeter to Southend when I don’t think the tower had opened my eurocontrol fpl and I was sent on a totally different route with a number of frequency changes and having to remind ATS that I was arriving at my clearance limit, whilst at the same time constantly being asked what service I requiredand often being told that it might not be available due to workload also I no longer fly VFR in the south of the UK as the posts on the other thread has scared the life out of me.
The requirement for a controlled flight to be given a clearance limit is an ICAO standard made in para 3.7.1 of ICAO Annex 11. The corresponding rule in SERA is made in point (d)(2) of SERA.8015 (link, pdf p 40). Point (f) specifies requirements for the coordination of clearances.
Peter wrote:
especially when no explicit clearance limit is stated
Never heard the word clearance limit in the UK and you do get botched handovers and last minute changes
I have heard it, used by Shoreham ATC years ago, in Class G, where they said (to traffic arriving from the east) the power station chimney is your “clearance limit”.
It was used when the circuit was full; other airfields deal with that by sending everybody to the overhead which is not their problem
I have never heard any clearance limit mentioned anywhere in Europe, on a flight involving CAS.
Gallois – indeed I have often written that while French ATC are great (and very casual) at CAS clearances they don’t appear to be aware of “R” and “P” areas in the DCT routings they give you. The pilot still needs to deal with that himself. I have no idea if this is formal but it is what I have found on my (nowadays rare) VFR flights in France.
They definitely do on IFR (or at least, I can remember a few situations where I grumbled at some detour and they said it was due to some R / P / Paradrop ahead), but I can’t recall having done a VFR flight in france requiring a clearance any recently.
