I have already been on Jersey and Guernsey, these are really nice islands.
For this summer I am planning a flight from Germany to Alderney.
My preferred airport of departure is Schönhagen, the autorouter gives me:
EDAZ N0135F100 ROSNO/N0135F100 IFR L986 MAG Z92 WRB P12 ESADU Z858 NUDGO DCT PADBA DCT BIKMU DCT MODRU Z283 SUMAS DCT SOGRI M617 CMB B3 RINTI L10 LAM DCT CPT L9 BCN N864 BHD BHD10 EGJA
The overhead is 37 %
I have tried Oostende as well. The autorouter gives me:
EBOS N0135F100 KONAN1M KONAN DCT SFD DCT KUMIL DCT BHD BHD10 EGJA
The overhead is 48 %
The routing to Jersey looks fine:
N0125F140 BUROK/N0125F140 IFR Z20 MAG Z92 WRB P12 ESADU DCT GMH DCT BIBTI DCT KENUM M170 LNO L607 GILOM DCT HUL M617 CMB R50 VIREX/N0128F030 DCT JSY JSY1F
The overhead is 5 %
The alternate (real destination) EGJA ist only 30 nm north
To avoid such a big dogleg my idea is to fly the „good routing” to Jersey nearly until the last waypoint and then tell ATC to deviate to the alternate Alderney. I have never done this before. Would it be legal ?
What would ATC say, if there seems to be no real reason to go to the alternate with EGJJ CAVOK ?
Would it be better to land on Jersey and do the short hop VFR ?
What would you do ?
There’s not much they can do, I think. You decide if you want to fly to the alternate.
I had a similar idea for other reasons… If I want to fly to Croatia from Germany I have to inform my tower and they call the local police to check my passport. Now if I want to fly before the airport opens (PPR) they will not let me because they cannot inform the police. So i file a FPL to Corfu/Greece – for which no police is required (Schengen) and put Split as the alternate …
I guess that’s not really legal though :-)
Flyer59 wrote:
I guess that’s not really legal though :-)
I have a friend that usually does this when flying back home (to Pula) anywhere from Schengen (mainly from Italy): he files Trieste with Pula as alternate and then notifies ATC on flying to alternate. I’m quite sure that this is somewhere in grey zone 
This is done quite often Of course I never did it myself 
I describe the procedure here
But otherwise there is no bad wx requirement for a diversion. The PIC can just decide.
One thing I would add is that diversions are standard practice by those who want to avoid getting the plane searched, so if you do it you should expect more careful police checks.
Maybe this is one of the things Peter should remove here :-) OTOH: I am European citizen and i can always show my german passport in Croatia, and I bet nobody will care much. Also it’s okay if they check me there – but this way I can take-off to Croatia without waiting for the police, who will not come before 9 am
“One thing I would add is that diversions are standard practice by those who want to avoid getting the plane searched, so if you do it you should expect more careful police checks”.
I would expect more careful checks when going from one country to another country, like from Italy to Serbia. But Jersey and Alderney are the Channel Islands, there is obviously not a big difference between ?
I agree with your drift, but here in the “UK” we have the silly Special Branch business which uses the Channel Islands and Ireland and the IOM as a big job creation/maintenance scheme, so you never know… It is a few years since I went to the CI but I recall they need their own version of the GAR form and their police keep an eye on things too. I guess I have had too many calls from the police at 4:00am telling me that because I filed the GAR 11hrs before EOBT and the PNR is 12hrs then I can’t fly, to be as casual about this as I would be flying anywhere else.
But a diversion is 100% legal, always, regardless of weather. It’s the Captain’s privilege. The legal issues (Customs, Immigration, etc) can be sorted after landing
Maybe this is one of the things Peter should remove here :-) OTOH: I am European citizen and i can always show my german passport in Croatia, and I bet nobody will care much. Also it’s okay if they check me there – but this way I can take-off to Croatia without waiting for the police, who will not come before 9 am
If I understand you correctly, Flyer59, what you are describing is avoiding the PNR for the police, by filing an intra-Schengen flight plan but diverting extra-Schengen once airborne. If you do it due actual wx, how can it be illegal, and if you do it in CAVOK, how can the departing country’s police know what your in-flight conditions were? I would think that if you kept doing it over and over, eventually you would get busted, though they might decide they cannot make any charges stick so they might bust you for something else to make the point (standard police practice worldwide, especially for “the usual suspects”).
If e.g. you repeatedly departed from Saucats (France, non-customs), to Southampton, UK, having filed for Caen, I reckon you would eventually get picked up, because everybody on the AFTN in France will see the “mistake”. Once or twice there might be a massive CB over Caen, but not 10 times.
Filing to one airport and going to the alternate in order to get an improved routing may not be officially approved, but is often done, and is perfectly legitimate. Avoiding immigration and customs by the same method is not a good idea in my opinion.
how can the departing country’s police know what your in-flight conditions were
Peter, of course they cannot know. But maybe I would have to …
- tell the police about my possible alternate before the flight?
- show my passport at the destination?
That it is very unlilkely that something like this will be enforced – doesnt’t automatically make it legal, right?
But whatever, I’d do it anyway, if really necessary.
But maybe I would have to …
- tell the police about my possible alternate before the flight?
- show my passport at the destination?
You don’t need to mention your intended destination on the flight plan. You can divert anywhere you want. Just tell the enroute controller you are talking to (best to not do that while still in the airspace of the departing country ) of your desired diversion.
Or you can file the intended destination as the alternate. That is done very often, as far as I can see.
Of course you will need to show your passport when you land – as anywhere else.
