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Flight plan which starts or ends in the air (not at an airport)

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You could always file 2 flight plans, one ending at a particular point in space and the other starting at a different point in space. The only problem being that if you are crossing the France/Spanish border in the VFR section you would have to file a 3rd FPL .

France

gallois wrote:

You could always file 2 flight plans, one ending at a particular point in space and the other starting at a different point in space.

How do you actually do that?

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

You file the first FPL from your first IFR connecting point eg an intersection to another intersection where you want to go VFR.
File the 2nd FPL from an intersection where you want to join the 2nd IFR section to destination.
We had a German guy with a Seneca who came here from Munich. He came VFR all the way because IFR routing would take him a long way North before he could turn South adding a great deal of time to the journey. For the return it was not possible to go VFR so we used Autorouter and filed IFR, LFFK to Chambery followed by a second FPL Chambery to Munich.
I also followed something that @Ibra posted here for LFBH to Calais, which Eurocontrol insisted I had to go via Dover. So I filed 2 FPLs one to LFAT and the second LFAT to Calais. They validated but I got a DCT from ABB to the STAR at Calais so I didn’t need to go to LFAT so I can’t exactly say how that would work if I hadn’t had the DCT. I suppose I would have just gone missed at LFAT and picked up my 2nd FPL at the vertical.

France

gallois wrote:

You file the first FPL from your first IFR connecting point eg an intersection to another intersection where you want to go VFR.
File the 2nd FPL from an intersection where you want to join the 2nd IFR section to destination.

How do you do that. I don’t understand how you can file a flight plan that does not begin at an airport. (Except for an airfile.) Please give an example.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Indeed; I cannot believe that is possible. Never hreard of that. Maybe only in France?

You need somebody to file an ARR when the 1st FP ends otherwise the next one under the same reg cannot be filed (well, with VFR anything can be filed but not in the same country because a given country will stuff VFR FPs into its own private database). Then you need someone to file a DEP for the next one.

The tips here still work, in the right places, for “getting a route to validate”. But the onus is on you to check DAs, PAs, RAs, a zillion bits of French mil airspace which French ATC generally politely refuse (they say they will check) to liase with, enroute notams, and generally make sure you can physically fly the route. The foregoing is really the same thing as cancelling IFR for a bit of your route but you aren’t actually cancelling IFR. Same tactic as this which always works but can be hard to do with just a phone unless you filed the route to start with to make it easy. Lots of other threads – example. These are all tools in your toolbox, and all are bona fide because the various ATC policies which sometimes make IFR (and VFR) difficult are mostly unpublished, and it is almost impossible to get ATCOs to post about them.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

In training and for “perfectionment” I very often used to fly on an IFPL to do a practice procedure at another airport, for which I had already filed the return IFPL or an IFPL to another airport to shoot a different sort of procedure. In the days before Rocket Route and Autorouter, if we waited to do the return IFPL we would have landed, and filed for the return an hour later.
By filing the return flight plan for the time we had calculated our return we get our return clearance during the approach.
An IFPL can be filed from any intersection to another intersection. It does not need to be an airfield. Before LFFK got an IAP I often used to file an IFPL beginning at LUGEN or L’Absie.
Under the regulations you can file an IFPL in flight providing you allow sufficient time in advance for the FPL to be distributed before arriving at the intersection.
A pop up (not the one above) is more used when no distribution is necessary, such as if the weather deteriorates on your way to an airport and you are already in their airspace or want to enter it. Living in a microclimate I have several times on returning to LFBH encountered weather, which was not forecast and requested the ILS approach, and had it granted even though by the time I got to the IAP or during it, the weather had cleared enough to be VMC.

France

gallois wrote:

An IFPL can be filed from any intersection to another intersection. It does not need to be an airfield.

Could you please give me an actual example of what such a flight plan looks like, so that I understand how it is possible?

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

I’m not clear on what you mean.
Its in the ICAO annexes but I’ll try.
Remember you don’t need to file a flight plan to fly VFR in France.
So let’s say I want to go LFFK to Propriano Corsica.
I can either put in the departure and destination the airfields depart LFFK and dest LFKO or I can put ZZZZ in each.
I will then put under route ( I would need to look up the exact syntax as often for this sort of flight just telephone the BRIA at Bordeaux) time hh:mm L’Absie IFR followed by the route and ending at AJO. Hh:mm
Under the remarks I would put depart ZZZZ L’Absie and dest AJO.
Everything else is the same as any other FPL.
That’s roughly it but as I wrote often I file on the phone with the BRIA at least 1hr beforehand. One has to be aware that before take off you might get a text saying that the FPL has been turned down with the reason. This is not anything.to do with the principle of the FPL I am describing. It could happen on a flight going from major airfield to major airfield with an IFPL door to door. The BRIA go through Eurocontrol and an FPL may not validate with them and that can take time.
Nowadays, with Autorouter it is just as simple to file an IFPL through that service.

France

gallois wrote:

I can either put in the departure and destination the airfields depart LFFK and dest LFKO or I can put ZZZZ in each.
I will then put under route ( I would need to look up the exact syntax as often for this sort of flight just telephone the BRIA at Bordeaux) time hh:mm L’Absie IFR followed by the route and ending at AJO. Hh:mm
Under the remarks I would put depart ZZZZ L’Absie and dest AJO.

Thank you. That answered my question!

I checked PANS-ATM and indeed it states that the DEP/ remark need not be an airport but can be the first point of the route. I admit I didn’t know that.

However, it does not appear that you can have the flight plan end at a point in the route in the same way – the DEST/ remark has to refer to an airport, even with ZZZZ. On the other hand that seems like an odd restriction and I can certainly understand if ATC would accept a point also as a DEST/. Indeed Eurocontrol does accept that.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 28 Jun 12:00
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Personally, I would file the routing that I want. If the flight is a) Convective and unsafe and unable to b) Fly at oxygen levels then I would cancel.

If however the opportunity presents that I can fly from A) DEP to B) ARR and land at C) ENR ALTN 1 then I will fly, safely then I’ll divert to that alternate.

If you are unable, you just tell ATC. That’s from my experience of the last year of flying IFR.

UdoR wrote:

As a spin-off from EuroGA weather Advice Group on Telegram discussion spun around how to file IFR through the Pyrenees (and other routing issues).

Starting point was flight preparation for a flight where a) Biarritz was below a quite convective cold front and b) altitude restricted to non-oxygen levels for that flight. There “exist” other airways over the Pyrenees but they do not seem to validate on actual routings. In the end one seems to be doomed to routings either over Biarritz or Perpignan.

Routing via Biarritz works fine in any altitude, but regarding it’s geographical position, there’s quite some probability that it is in bad weather.

Just as the starting for this thread, the discussed options included to cancel IFR for the part over the Pyrenees and to re-join IFR thereafter. Is this reasonable? Any experience whether ATC on either side accepts rejoinder to IFR?

Qualified PPL with IR SP/SE PBN
EGSG, United Kingdom
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