what is the kind of airspace (advisory airspace?) in the UK which is type “G” ouside controlled airspace but requires a flightplan and two way communication? … Are those perhaps routings over open water (Irish Sea or North Atlantic) ?
There are a small number of class F advisory routes, I think mainly around the west coast of Scotland. These are being replaced with class E due to SERA – see here.
Are you referring to “continental Europe”?
The original statement is very much wrong when applied to Germany. The military has almost no airspace dedicated to it and the little they do is usually shared with civilians. Many (most?) military airports have joint use. French airspace is heavily dominated by military requirements but Germany is virtually all civilian.
Large areas of Germany are covered with low level military flight areas by night. Whether they use it is a different matter.
Before 1990 there were huge military areas including the ADIZ. The fall of the iron curtain made things easier.
Before 1990 there were huge military areas including the ADIZ. The fall of the iron curtain made things easier.
A lot! I remember these very broad “low level corridors” criss-crossing the whole country that were really busy during the week – one really had to stay above 2000ft or risk to be hit. Or the “Black Forest Wall”, a military zone covering most of the Black Forest lengthwise up to FL170 or 180 (not in the weekend luckily). The airfields in the southwest corner of Germany like EDTF were almost completely isolated from Monday till Friday because of it and flying along the Rhine was not possible either because EDTG, EDTL, EDSB and EDTB were all military fields (French, Canadian and American!) with large control zones.
There are a small number of class F advisory routes, I think mainly around the west coast of Scotland.
Indeed….I flew W4D and N560D from Aberdeen to Kirkwall the weekend before last….and received ATC (and radar service) from Scottish Control
I think the practicalities of this are quite easy.
If you follow published airways and procedures, you will remain in the system and receive a service end-to-end [or from join to exit on Y/Z flight plans]. You might be in Class E or F and receive no separation, but you will be handed over seamlessly.
If you use [unpublished] DCTs, you are on your own – you might go through a restricted or danger area and simply will not fly anywhere near your filed route, or leave controlled airspace in which case ATC will say the local equivalent of “see you later” – the latter is more an issue in the UK with huge gaps in CAS than in Germany and France with widespread class E airspace. Some airports may not be connected to the airways system or not reachable in a practical way (St Mawgan/Newquay springs to mind) so it might be unavoidable.
Just for our overall amusement: I remember a conversation I had with a pilot who was a bit upset that ATC did give him a large detour. He had “hacked” together a DCT route using tricks such as DCT NIK085008 instead of waypoint names to get around CFMU restrictions (if I remember correctly, he broadly followed L179, which is a conditional route). While that got him around the restriction on that particular route, it still took him right through military airspace which happened to be active at the time…
If you follow published airways and procedures
Too bad “the system” is unattainable without oxygen. That’s where it starts to get complicated.
He had “hacked” together a DCT route using tricks such as DCT NIK085008
The eurocontrol system is clever enough to handle plans like that if it is fed with enough information by the NAA.
The UK CAA is relatively good at this, there are lots of danger areas in the eurocontrol system (CACD) which get activated using AUP/UUP.
“hacked” together a DCT route using tricks such as DCT NIK085008 instead of waypoint names to get around CFMU restrictions
The restrictions come from each country’s airspace dept and sometimes, or actually quite often, countries come up with stuff which makes no sense. For example I have noticed that the MAX DCT in N France is now 10nm, so if you want to fly from say DVL to EGKA you may have to use a series of waypoints like
DVL355009
DVL355018
DVL355027
DVL355036
and so on all the way into UK airspace. I have actually done that. And it was flown exactly as filed. But if the restriction is real then ATC won’t let you fly it on the day – so anybody doing this needs to be aware of notams enroute, which is something very few IFR pilots get.
In France hacking together a route allows you to file exactly what you know that you will be flying anyway and reduces the fuel required to make the trip. Try finding a route from LFPN to LFSD and observe the big detour via the Reims area (40% overhead). Now for gigs, try forcing a route via PTV. Again a big detour (58% overhead). With some DCT magic from PTV you can cut that overhead significantly and get pretty close to the PTV DCT DJL that you will in fact get if you ask in a nice way 
The max DCT limit varies from one FIR to another. In Paris FIR it is indeed 10 NM, whereas in Brest FIR I believe it is 50 NM, yet another of the French FIRs has a 30 NM limit for directs.
Try finding a route from LFPN to LFSD and observe the big detour via the Reims area (40% overhead). Now for gigs, try forcing a route via PTV. Again a big detour (58% overhead). With some DCT magic from PTV you can cut that overhead significantly and get pretty close to the PTV DCT DJL that you will in fact get if you ask in a nice way
How do you get it shorter than this? The departure DCT limit for LFPN is 0 NM so you are forced on a SID.
