You can depart a Class G airport in the UK (even one with IAPs e.g. Shoreham or Biggin) despite a departure slot. They will tell you about the slot but won’t actually stop you departing – because your departure clearance does not normally include a clearance to enter CAS. (If it did then you obviously could not do it).
So you could “fly around” for a bit… but I don’t consider this helpful because you might fly around for quite a bit. I have had such “fly around” experiences in UK, France, Greece and on balance I don’t think they are worth doing, especially in real wx when you may not be able to return to the airport of departure. It’s quite a dangerous phase of flight (quasi VFR) and a number of IR holders have been killed during it.
Besides has anybody ever tried to file a flight plan for example via some kind of datalink while in the air and then doing a pick up just shortly later?
It’s a question frequently asked – because of the obvious possibility of doing it over a satphone – but I don’t know of anybody who actually did it. In the UK, it would self evidently work because you could just go for a local flight around Shoreham, file the FP to say Prague on the air, and then tell Shoreham ATC you are diverting to Prague and then call up London Info for the provisional DC which will have a handover to London Control.
One gotcha is that (in the UK) you need to send in the GAR form (with a zero required notice time for an EU departure with EU citizens) but you could do that airborne also (by email, or even using the new web-based form).
In fact you could just tell the airport of departure that you are going to land at another nearby airport, and instead call up London Info as above. No “system” is keeping track of Class G flights so this would also work. I wonder what would be actually illegal in doing that… nothing that I can think of. I have diverted a number of times to a different country without having a flight plan filed for the diversion leg.
There are loads of other things which would also work, using holes in the system, and which would be definitely illegal, technically….. basically revolving around flying around, filing flight plans airborne, and not telling the truth about where you departed. One UK pilot who did a variant of it (albeit without any flight plan and apparently non-radio) flying a Vari-EZ on a “diversion” from the UK to, ahem, Switzerland, got done £20000. They searched for the presumed wreckage in the UK, too.
Sebastian, yes an IFR to VFR plan would have worked but trying to file these more complex flight plans from your phone is hard with a slow data connection while it is snowing onto the plane. And of course you can’t just go VFR at FL280. I have to say this was the only time I wished I had full VFR charts for Europe as I was a little light although the charts on the MFD show all restricted/danger areas etc.
I have to say this was the only time I wished I had full VFR charts for Europe
I completely agree. This is vital with Z or Y flight plans, or any scenario where one cannot collect the full CAS-entry DC before takeoff (like… most of UK Class G airports).
You can achieve that but the only way I know of, with “European” coverage, involves running Oziexplorer, and it needs either Windows or Android.
Fortunately I had the UK chart which is the worst place to try to navigate VFR. Was really looking forward to working my way around the south coast and the London TMA at low level….
So as a wrap up. The TAF didn’t look good for EDTY:
TAF EDTY 061400Z 0615/0620 28015KT 9999 SCT012 BKN030
TEMPO 0615/0620 30020G30KT 0800 SHSN BKN004 SCT015TCU=
Had a nice groundspeed on the way:
The radar on arrival was OK:
As was the METAR:
In fact, it was predominantly a really strong wind almost straight down the runway with a little blown snow. I failed to maintain high groundspeed to compensate and seemed to spend about 6 months on final. Almost no icing although did pick up a little going through the clouds.
I recently searched and validated a flightplan and filed it using the Thuraya XT phone with Hotspot (WIFI adapter) and this worked. I even got the push message on my iPhone to acknowledge the acceptance of the flightplan. Even the route searching worked.
Then last week I did a flight from Bergen to Oslo and had a tailwind of 93 knots at FL90. Can’t remember the GS, but it was in the range of 260-270 knots.
> One gotcha is that (in the UK) you need to send in the GAR form (with a zero required notice time for an EU departure with EU citizens) but you could do that airborne also (by email, or even using the new web-based form).
You don’t need to send the GAR form for a departure to EU!
So you can divert to Prague.
Yep. Kept getting 3 hour slot delays. Finally filed to Lille (wrong Lille by the way!), the Brussels allowed me to divert to EGTK and London accepted me. Was planning to do a VFR/IFR OCAS trip out of Lille. As it happened was IFR all the way and no need to land in France.
Jason, if it is not too much trouble could you explain how you would go about arranging VFR/IFR OCAS for me as a luddite who is not familiar that much with European filing nuances?
Woud you pre-file the IFR segment on the ground, launch VFR then ask approach for the IFR clearance once airborne ?
Is this what they call a “pop up clearance” in the US?
Apologies in advance if this is a very basic question, but I have never done one in Europe before, and I could see it would be very handy when the slot system is working against you.
Cheers. E
Hi. I wasn’t clear. I would have filed a Y flightplan. Filed IFR from Lille to the FIR boundary with the UK then VFR from then on. That would have been accepted as they were limiting IFR clearances into the zone not VFR. Or I guess you could file IFR or VFR at a level and route that did not require a clearance but that would be harder than filing IFR/VFR and flying IFR OCAS.
eal
Not sure if this is what you were after but in the UK you can file “I” even for a farm strip.
There is a particular procedure for getting “into the system” i.e. for high altitude IFR and basically you need to file for some “obviously IFR” level like FL100 or higher; that will force London Control to accept the flight plan. If you file “I” for say 3000ft they will just chuck the FP in the bin as soon as they get it from Eurocontrol (so you may as well file “V” 
)
As I see it, Jason could have just filed “I” from Germany to say Le Touquet, then cancelled IFR and asked for a diversion to a (any) UK airport. Then he would end up hacking back home in Class G, 2400ft below the LTMA, like the rest of us 
Upon the diversion, French ATC will send an AFTN message to the newly declared ultimate destination, so they (Oxford or whatever) will be expecting you, at some ETA.
