I have just been sorting out the Lucca trip pics. The leg from Bergerac to Lucca was done VFR and I thought this sequence was a really good illustration how one can get caught
We flew VMC on top most of the way to the coast.
But even the terrain below was virtually impossible to navigate visually, due to a lack of features.
This was somewhere on the Rodez-Cannes leg.
This is what I love the most when I fly is to fly VMC on top of clouds. Of course, one has to make sure he can land at its destination airfield without flying in to the clouds, but when it is possible, it is so great ! It feels like you are not on earth any more … Wonderful !
What was your altitude ?
I was flying above the clouds at 2000ft below the Paris TMA 2 weeks ago for about 10 minutes, then the sky was clear and it was CAVOK at my destination airfield in Pontoise. Lovely Sunday, that was.
At that point I think FL065 but I will retrieve the GPS track later today and that will have it.
Yes one needs to be sure the destination is clear.
Alternatively there is the old trick – which can be used really safely only with coastal airports – which is to descend through the stuff when out over the water, outside the destination airport’s CAS, and then proceed “genuine VFR” to the destination. This is used by instrument-capable pilots who don’t have the full IR (i.e. Brits with the IMC Rating, when outside the UK) or by IR holders who are flying “VFR” for whatever reason. I never wrote this…
I never wrote this…
A good idea to create a self destroying post. lol
VFR On Top greatly increases your cross-country abilities, but it is a tricky game if you’re not Instrument/IMC Rated.
I once got caught when flying over an overcast in France. The expected SCT clouds at destination didn’t exist.
I decided to do a descent in IMC to the MSA, and if I wouldn’t be visual climb up again and return to some place where there would be holes in the clouds.
I remember I was not able to handle the radio when Lille Info was calling me. I focussed on keeping the plane flying. It was quite scary.
I came visual at about 1500ft AGL. I decided that VFR + my “pragmatic” personality was not a good combination and started the IR… :-)
It will be interesting to see how the Enroute IR works out in practice. Will it require Alternate type TAFs, with descent from controlled airspace into VMC forecast at least one or two hours either side of the designated reporting point? In effect you would need to depart from CAS at an airport with a TAF?
As much as I dont like draconian measures or the overbearing use of the health and safety board, I do think VFR on top should not be allowed without a qualification of the various types that include the word ‘instrument’.
As an IMCr holder I recently encountered a load of cloud I hadnt expected (and my weather interpretation has generally been pretty good) and was in IMC most of the way from Blackbushe until the south coast, and then I was VFR on top at 7400 ft over the water. Anticipating the zone boundary on my way to Cherbourg I realised there wasnt enough holes (though there were some) to descend in VMC so I made the early decision to descend while still able to legally exercise my IMC privileges, and did the rest of the journey at 1500 AGL. Personally I’d have rather been higher over that long stretch of water.
But had I proceeded I would be illegal, and thats one thing. But if I didnt have the IMCr, not only would I be illegal, I would be suitably inexperienced to deal with that descent through cloud over the coastline, and thats hugely life-threating. One of the biggest grievances with GA is weather, but in my mind you either get an IMCr, an IR(R), EIR, CBIR or just stay below cloud and accept it.
Some may say thats easy for me to say, but actually my IMCr has lapsed a few days ago, and if I continue to fly next year, I wont renew it until the warmer months, as it’s practically useless to me in a non-FIKI machine in the UK. So I will be just staying below the cloud and not being VFR-on-top because thats the safe thing to do, though of course boring perhaps.
As Peter ’ said ’ descend over the sea until below the cloud……it doesnt always work, didnt a (German?) pilot in a C172 do that several years ago and he collided with the mast of a yacht somewhere over the North sea?
as it’s practically useless to me in a non-FIKI machine in the UK.
I have not found that myself. One can fly below cloud allright of course if there is room, and a lot of the time the cloud is thin enough relative to the CAS base. For example one can fly (without looking at the map properly) from Shoreham to Aberdeen, VFR, at levels like 5400ft and above, if one avoids the London TMA with a wide margin.
But yes it’s true that the Class A bases mean that winter IFR in the UK does benefit a lot from the full IR. And conversely the full IR is of limited use in the UK in the summer; it’s nice to climb up to FL100 and just sit there but one doesn’t really need it most of the time.
I do think VFR on top should not be allowed without a qualification of the various types that include the word ‘instrument’.
I think the situation we have here is that there is a gulf between what is ICAO-permitted and what is being trained by the PPL training apparatus. The latter desires a product on their price list that doesn’t cost 20,000 quid, obviously, because nobody would then want a PPL. The UK has only recently (April 2012, for UK issued JAA PPLs) allowed VFR without sight of surface on UK issued licenses (it was never an airspace rule in the UK), but most of the world has always had it. France for example has always had it, and IIRC their PPL training includes some extras like VOR navigation, which is not done in the UK. In my PPL there was just a VOR/VOR position fix, no enroute radio nav at all, and no DME despite DME being so utterly simple to use. And that’s before we get anywhere near the old chestnut of GPS in PPL training, which the PPL industry resists strongly because it would force equipment installation, ground training, etc. I don’t think this stuff will ever get reconciled officially because the training providers don’t want it, and with some 90% or so of new PPL holders chucking it all in within a year or so, you can see why they don’t want to put much effort into it. What will eventually happen is what happened in America where GPS is simply accepted, although over there the adoption was much accelerated by the fact that an FAA examiner is entitled to request a demonstration of all equipment installed on the aircraft, and the flying schools had to modernise eventually… Here, a school can buy a G1000 aircraft but never teach GPS for navigation because they are assured that the FE will not ask for its use to be demonstrated (and anyway he could not if the database is even 1 cycle out of date which I am told is the “favourite method” of making sure 
)
Regarding the EIR, I don’t know how it will work given that you cannot fly a SID/STAR and given that there is no “official” forecast for the point in space corresponding to the terminating waypoint(s) of the enroute sector 
Obviously there are “ways” to examine the wx situation, and IFR pilots do this as a normal thing, but none of these are “official” in the sense of being able to prove that you did some legally required level of due diligence.
didnt a (German?) pilot in a C172 do that several years ago and he collided with the mast of a yacht somewhere over the North sea?
I’d say that he took the word “descent” a bit too liberally I mean, surely, he had the QNH (which you can get even from the near-incomprehensible ATIS at La Rochelle) and he had an altimeter? Also GPS altitude is very accurate – usually within 20ft or so.
I would think that for a flight planning for the EIR you would need to have the same requirements as for a full IFR plan: Destination above minimums as well as a suitable alternate above minima. If your destination has no forecast, it is to be regarded as closed destination and 2 suitable alternates above minima are necessary.
That is how I remember planning at the time and it makes perfect sense to me. It is usually not a too big deal to find two airports with METAR/TAF within the flying area your VFR destination is located in, so use those. If both are above VFR minimas then the chance that your destination is above minimas as well should be quite good.
