Graham wrote:
They apparently can. If one drops out of UK CAS then to re-enter without a newly-obtained clearance would constitute a bust. In any case the controller who drops you out tells you to freecall and doesn’t arrange anything further for you.
No need to arrange anything further for you. You’re already cleared. It is a bust only because nobody chooses to challenge it in a court.
If the UK deviates from ICAO standards, then I presume it should be published in the AIP. Where in the AIP does it state that ATC can cancel your IFR clearance?
Please provide an AIP or legal text supporting for the statements saying if you have a clearance to a point that and you touch uncontrolled airspace that your clearance is invalidated and that it would be a violation to continue under your given clearance (NOT a statement that people have been violated or that this is how it works in the UK).
It may very well be that what Graham says about UK controllers never giving a full route clearance is probably true and maybe what Peter says about them being forbidden from providing route clearances is probably right. But in the many times this has come up nobody has provided the reference us non-uk pilots have asked for. The whole point of the IFR system is so that if you get that clearance at whatever departure airport, lose comms as soon as you enter the clouds, never enter VMC, fly an approach at your destination and not have to worry that you are going to collide with someone/something. It’s the ATC systems job to coordinate your handoff to the next sector.
is a bust only because nobody chooses to challenge it in a court.
Yes, probably this is true, but practically what happens is that [the man who doesn’t want to be named] will remove your license, and the case will come to court (based on some actual people I spoke to) at best 6 months later, so you will not be flying for 6 months, unless you can find a “seat warmer” for the RHS.
It is possible that if one could get to court in a few days, somebody would have tested this by now.
But it is also possible that – even though these cases are MORd, and I have seen the MORs – the CAA doesn’t bust them because they know they would lose a case where somebody fought it.
Plenty here but nobody wants to read that long thread 
nobody has provided the reference us non-uk pilots have asked for.
There isn’t one. It is just the way the system is operated.
There will be stuff in ATC manuals, of course, but these are mostly secret. MATS Pt 1 is published but MATS Pt 2 is “commercially confidential”, apparently to prevent one ATC unit unfairly competing with another! And UK ATC sign the Official Secrets Act, and almost never post anything useful on forums. They beat people up quite a lot (even by the standards of fb I have never seen anything like it elsewhere, from “professional” people) and the retired ones sometimes let up a little snippet from 30 years ago, but nothing current.
lose comms as soon as you enter the clouds, never enter VMC, fly an approach at your destination and not have to worry that you are going to collide with someone/something
That is correct, and you can still do that. Would likely draw massive attention.
That is correct, and you can still do that. Would likely draw massive attention.
Sounds like a great plan for a last flight before retirement! Take off from Greece and fly all the way to the UK, having lost your radio just after take off 
My local UK airport has (non-SID) departures that both remain initially inside CAS and go initially outside CAS depending on the direction. If we depart along an airway we will get the expected “Cleared to destination ABCD via airway XYZ, climb altitude x000ft squawk 1234”. If we depart in a direction with no airway, we get “Cleared to leave controlled airspace to the south, climb x000ft squawk 1234”. This is true both in a 737 and in a PA28.
In a 737, we are looked after no matter where we go, and don’t need to ask for any further clearances. In a light aircraft, even when cleared to destination via an airway, we quite often drop out of the base of it due to the level rising, and in that case then inside the UK we do tend to end up with the “freecall London information” scenario who then want to know our life story.
The UK ATC system just doesn’t seem set up for non CAS-CAS IFR, although some concessions seem to be made to look after large commercial traffic. I would love to just blast on through CAS if I was fobbed off to London info, but even though I think you could argue your point in court, I can’t afford to take that risk. I suspect any non UK based pilots flying non UK reg aircraft would be almost entirely let off with this due to the higher ups knowing that the system is flawed.
There’s no reference. But just try it and see what happens. Lots of things are the way they are without being described in law or an official publication. You might win in court, not that anyone is likely to try it for fun, but winning in court is not the desired outcome.
On your reference to it being ATC’s responsibility to coordinate you with the next sector, that’s just the point – there is no ‘next sector’. Invariably when you leave CAS you enter an area not officially covered by any radar unit. Of course you may be able to get some service from someone (an airfield, an RAF unit, or in the south east one of the Farnborough LARS units) but there will be no unit that MUST handle your flight as part of a coordinated process, regardless of what whole-route clearance you think you have.
I suspect any non UK based pilots flying non UK reg aircraft would be almost entirely let off with this due to the higher ups knowing that the system is flawed.
Indeed I think that is exactly what happens. The ATC unit MORs you – they are required to – then NATS might ask for their usual “piece of self incrimination” which goes to the CAA, and then the CAA probably drop it.
In a 737, we are looked after no matter where we go, and don’t need to ask for any further clearances.
Of course, and that will also be in their confidential operating manuals.
Sounds like a great plan for a last flight before retirement! Take off from Greece and fly all the way to the UK, having lost your radio just after take off
I raised this Q at a NATS presentation c. 2011 and was told if I set 7600 and just fly like that, I would be shot down. I asked the senior NATS guy to repeat it, and he did. Good job he doesn’t control the RAF but IMHO in VMC an interception would be dead certain; what happens in IMC I have no idea.
Peter wrote:
I raised this Q at a NATS presentation c. 2011 and was told if I set 7600 and just fly like that, I would be shot down. I asked the senior NATS guy to repeat it, and he did.
This is just scare tactic, govern by fear stuff. Of course nobody would.
But they would take hell on them after such an incident and they would largely prefer you dead than alive
Cttime wrote:
I hope for the sake of flight safety your system isn’t as bad as you believe it to be.
It is that bad I’m afraid, I have tested it. As I fly a G-REG plane but on an EASA license UK ATC did try to dick me around on a flight from Gamston to Antwerp. I simply informed them on frequency I had a validated IFR plan, was cleared as being IFR as of X-feet (can’t remember anymore) was in IMC conditions and to kindly go and sort me out. Put me on vectors if you have to. Much chaos ensued with circling descends to 5000ft over the North Sea to enter Amsterdam airspace but when they said you are now VFR I simply told them I never cancelled and shall we listen to the tapes. Silence…. followed by a stay out of controlled airspace. Sorry, I am IMC do your job get me vectors. I could sense the controller sweating almost as much as I was being unfamiliar with the UK peculiarity and airspace (I usually fly LFHN to London where the issue doesn’t exist). In the end they ended up sorting it, got vectors to descent to 5K feet. When with Amsterdam (they handed me off pretty fast after this) I was on an IFR plan and everything ran smoothly. What will happen one day is that some pilot (as naive as I may have been about UK exceptionalism when it comes to IACA rules) will fly into Schiphol airspace and collide with an airliner because of this nonsense and then the UK will have to do a big ‘’mea-culpa’’ and we didn’t know etc. They’ll get sued, pay a fine to the families and things will get better. I find the behaviour almost criminal as far as neglect goes. Clearly this is dangerous, in particular for foreign pilots and so inconsistent with the ‘’your perfectly fine to fly an IAP in class G’’ (which btw I am supportive off) approach the UK rather pragmatically takes compared to some European countries.
