boscomantico wrote:
Does it mean I can do with the abbreviated flightplan (by radio) only for transits, not for landing or departing?
“the purpose is to obtain a clearance for a minor portion of a flight such as to cross an airway, to take off from, or to land at a controlled aerodrome.”
These are all examples. The key phrase is “a minor portion of a flight”.
Peter wrote:
maybe in does in Sweden?
Please stop making that kind of remark. I have no idea if AFIL works in Sweden, having never tried it. If you read my post again you can see that I write that you should NOT need an AFIL to cross a zone. An AFIL is a complete flight plan which is processed and distributed just like any other filed flight plan. An abbreviated flight plan is something completely different where you pass only the necessary details directly to the controller who needs them.
While I do agree with the idea of filing a report, I have the feeling that little happens from these reports. Maybe somethign happens long term, if there is a lot of them filed.
But I really thing that in addition to filing, a polite call to the duty supervisor, asking questions, is more likely to achieve results in the short term. If the duty superviser is getting three such calls a day, he’s going to start asking the ATC officer “What’s going on? Why am I getting loads of work because you aren’t doing yours work?”.
Well, lots of things work in Sweden, in terms of GA support, which don’t appear to work elsewhere. You should be happy 
On the issue of UK transit refusals the CAA said years ago, when setting up that reporting site, that it should be used for that purpose, so why not use it? Too often we are denied a transit where it appears clear there is no “traffic” reason for it and this is quite wrong. ATC at these radar units, mostly NATS, are very highly paid. At a guess, more than around 99% of the working population. Is their job watching the radar at LGW/LHR/etc and telling traffic to report LOC established, clear to land, etc? NO – their job is traffic management. They should be doing their job.
Same with infringements incidentally (not this topic) where the UK has rigged up a nuclear meltdown like procedure whenever anybody touches CAS even for seconds. It is like a bulb blowing in the Apollo 11 panel triggering an immediate mission abort and the crew spending the rest of the flight writing reports… perhaps pausing briefly during re-entry.
Why do we have this? Well, it is inevitable for things to drift towards that because
so it is right to have overall surveillance and controls, to prevent the system to collapse into something run for the benefit of itself.
Airborne_Again wrote:
We have to be careful what a “flight plan” means. SERA has no requirement of a filed flight plan (which also an AFIL is).
Airborne_Again wrote:
An abbreviated flight plan transmitted in the air by radiotelephony for the crossing of controlled airspace
Sorry for being imprecise in my wording. How would you call it when you file an abbreviated flight plan if you don’t call it “file” or “AFIL” if it’s done in the air?
Does the abbreviation AAFIL exist for abbreviated flight plans?
Then I obviously should have used this – but it’s still a flight plan you file in the air…
But I hope beyond terminology that if asked “do you have a flight plan” an answer that sounds like “no idea I need one” can create the impression that the pilot has no idea of the SERA requirements for crossing an airspace…
Peter wrote:
Well, lots of things work in Sweden, in terms of GA support, which don’t appear to work elsewhere. You should be happy
I am. But in this case I didn’t say anything about Sweden or Swedish regs – only EASA regs.
Yesterday crossed the Hannover EDDV CTR twice while VFR, no FP. On first contact ATC advised that the CTR was IMC, but granted an SVFR clearance and let us cross below their ILS at “not above 1000 ft” on their own without prompt or further being asked. Excellent service!
Similarly uncomplicated on the return journey later that day.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Sorry for being imprecise in my wording. How would you call it when you file an abbreviated flight plan if you don’t call it “file” or “AFIL” if it’s done in the air?
Does the abbreviation AAFIL exist for abbreviated flight plans?
Then I obviously should have used this – but it’s still a flight plan you file in the air…But I hope beyond terminology that if asked “do you have a flight plan” an answer that sounds like “no idea I need one” can create the impression that the pilot has no idea of the SERA requirements for crossing an airspace…
Maybe we’re talking past each other.
“Filing” a flight plan, whether directly with an ARO, using SkyDemon, Autorouter or whatever – including AFIL – means that you provide every item on the flight plan form to make a flight plan message which is then processed and distributed using AFTN. It will eventually end up as strips at the ATC positions. When an ATC unit asks, as they did Aveling, if you have filed a flight plan, this is what they mean.
But SERA also talks about abbreviated flight plans. They are not “filed”, they don’t result in AFTN messages etc. They are passed directly by radio to the controller that need them, typically in the form of a transit request, or a request to enter a control zone and land, or a request to take off and leave a control zone. The controller makes the strip him/herself.
(“strip” should be understood in a general sense, including information in an ATC computer system.)
According to SERA, you should not need to “file” a flight plan for a single zone transit (or landing, or take-off) – an abbreviated flight plan should be acceptable.
Cardiff/Bristol put Notams that required FPL for VFR transits (which did not help the situation given that the average Brit PPL never filed an FPL and the few who filed them in SkyDemon did not have much understanding of how they are distributed in UK: only London/Scottish FIS gets them, the rest of en-route ATSU needs to be add manually)
In France its as @Airborne_Again describes.
Registration, type, from X to Y altitude VFR request transit zone from position Z to W . Or request integration. If you are speaking French expect a squawk starting 60… if speaking English expect a squawk beginning 12….. But not always the case.
