It’s important to read the full SERA, which is different from country to country.
(f) Except when necessary for take-off or landing, or except by permission from the competent authority, a VFR flight
shall not be flown:
It’s in that “or except by permission from the competent authority”. The Danish CAA may have something similar.
LeSving wrote:
It’s important to read the full SERA, which is different from country to country.
Isn’t the whole idea behind Standardised European Rules of the Air (SERA) to not have to look country-to-country?
tmo wrote:
Isn’t the whole idea behind Standardised European Rules of the Air
Well, they are indeed standardized. The phrase “or except by permission from the competent authority” is something no country can bypass 
Seriously, who have said that you should not look on a per country basis? Standardised does not mean identical, for other things than perhaps “in principle”.
LeSving wrote:
except by permission from the competent authority,
Yes, and I would still very much like to read any Norwegian additions. I have not managed to find them myself.
Denmark CAA has published all additions to SERA in the document BL 7-100, and there is nothing about SERA.5005(f).
huv wrote:
I may be guilty here, but I think the problem is that SERA does not specifically allow what everybody is doing, and should be doing – to practise aborted landings. Not being precise about this allows for the slippery slope.
It’s quite simple: As it is not “specifically allowed” but geerally forbidden it is forbidden. As simple as that! Not saying it makes sense or is good but it is forbidden. No slippery slope here.
The question for practice flights is simply: How do we deal with the fact that something which is actually necessary (to fulfill other requirements) is forbidden due to SERA. It is an obvious mistake in this regulation. We can jointly agree to just ignore the rule or we can make EASA change it – what would be the right thing to do.
Don’t all countries publish something like this?
UK CAA explicltly allow the “low pass” under practice approach (I can’t see how Flight Calibration guys test ILS signals)
https://www.caa.co.uk/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=4294975756
Well, exactly – if you want to file a difference, feel free, just put them all in one place. Same as with ICAO.
tmo wrote:
Well, exactly – if you want to file a difference, feel free, just put them all in one place. Same as with ICAO.
Except that you can’t file a difference with SERA. SERA is to be applied exactly by all EASA member states. Ibra’s quote is not about differences but about decisions made by the UK CAA where SERA explicitly permits member states to decide. In this particular case a Competent Authority may permit lower altitudes either generally or in individual cases.
This is not just wordplay because a country is not allowed to prescribe higher minimum altitudes — that would indeed be a difference from SERA. If an authority feels that the minimum altitude according to SERA is unsafe, their option is to declare a restricted area where the flight restriction is a requirement on higher minimum altitudes. (GM1 to SERA.3105) The point is of course that a pilot should expect general rules to be no more restrictive than SERA, while a restricted area is clearly marked on charts as such.
Airborne_Again wrote:
This is not just wordplay because a country is not allowed to prescribe higher minimum altitudes — that would indeed be a difference from SERA. If an authority feels that the minimum altitude according to SERA is unsafe, their option is to declare a restricted area where the flight restriction is a requirement on higher minimum altitudes. (GM1 to SERA.3105) The point is of course that a pilot should expect general rules to be no more restrictive than SERA, while a restricted area is clearly marked on charts as such.
This is highly relevant in France where there is a law from 1957 for overflying cities except for takeoff & landing, in a nutshell it’s 5000ft agl for heavy ME aircraft and maybe 3000ft agl for SE depending on the congested area colour on the official IGN chart (which one rarely use), this applies for both IFR & VFR but it’s rarely an issue for IFR as they tend to fly high, I don’t recall anyone getting prosecuted on this and post-SERA it has no legal basis, still some FUD is around
The only way is to have restricted/prohibited area over every big city, a pilot is of course is exempt if he keeps a shallow fast climb after takeoff 
Of course no one give a toss about it when flying POGO procedures (IFR from Toussus to Pentoise/LeBourget), I never heard anyone refusing initial clearance at 3000ft amsl near Paris, especially some very heavy twins…
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/id/LEGITEXT000006075110/2009-01-21/
