In France, you would request a start up clearance from the ATC, either by calling them if the airfield is unmanned or via the AFISO.
(It is not a start up clearance per se as you usually don’t need any clearance to start your engine in France)
They will approve your start up meaning “You will get your clearance to enter CAS in a reasonable delay”, and they will typically ask you to call them 3 mn before being ready to depart.
3 mn before being ready to depart, with you bluetoothed Bose you would call them again and they would give you a clearance such as “once airborne call such frequency and climb on such heading to such altitude”.
IFR AOCAS is allowed in France provided you file a flight plan, and your remain in constant contact with an ATC unit, and you fly at or above 3000ft AMSL (in addition of being above MSA)
Arrêté du 17 juillet 1992 relatif aux procédures générales de circulation aérienne pour l’utilisation des aérodromes par les aéronefs
__ Aérodromes pour lesquels des procédures de départ ou d’approche aux instruments n’ont pas été publiées ou approuvées__
En l’absence de procédure publiée ou approuvée, l’aéronef :
- à l’arrivée, doit évoluer en VMC en dessous du plus élevé des deux niveaux suivants : 900 m (3000 pieds) au-dessus du niveau moyen de la mer ou 300 m (1000 pieds) au-dessus du sol ; les conditions météorologiques de vol à vue exigées en dessous de ce niveau doivent être réunies au plus tard 150 m (500 pieds) au-dessus ; il doit alors
se conformer aux dispositions prévues pour les vols VFR en ce qui concerne :
- les paramètres,
- l’intégration dans la circulation d’aérodrome,
- les radiocommunications ;
- au départ, doit maintenir les conditions VMC jusqu’au plus élevé des deux niveaux suivants : 900 m (3000 pieds) au-dessus du niveau moyen de la mer ou 300 m (1000 pieds) au-dessus du sol
Translation: An IFR flight approaching for landing at an aerodrome without instrument approach procedure must
-see the ground and be out of clouds at 3500 AMSL and 1500 AGL
- and below 3000ft AMSL and 1000ft AGL do as a VFR would do.
When departing from such an aerodrome, you must remain VMC until 3000ft AMSL and 1000ft AGL
From the AIP
The UK AIP is not the law, however. It is a guidance document, mostly. The law is in the ANO (cap393.pdf somewhere at caa.co.uk) and that says it is OK to descend away from a published IAP if doing it to land and in accordance with normal aviation practice.
Of course those words have been debated online for years 
But nobody has ever been prosecuted for doing it, in the UK.
It does seem that in this case somebody wrote the AIP without reading the actual law. That happens a lot inside the UK CAA. A lot of the “Safety Sense” leaflets contain personal opinions which, while perhaps sensible, are not law, and many people have mistakenly interpreted them as law. The supposedly unauthorised use of GPS for navigation is a massively notorious example of this.
Is the French quote from French aviation law, or from their AIP?
BTW there is another much easier way of making a block of text into italics, using the “aside” attribute. See Posting Tips. The only current bug there is that it needs a < p > (without the spaces) inserted after it, if there is any following text.
AIP should normally be an extract of the applicable law…
An Arrêté (act signed by a Minister) has normally the force law. I write normally because from time to time an Arrêté is cancelled by the court because the Minister ruled beyond its power.
AIP should normally be an extract of the applicable law…
As an extract it has no legal meaning. AIP is not a source of law, it is just a convenient collection in a standardized format of varying quality. In some countries, it’s complete rubbish, in others it’s perfect. It’s a good resource to use but not suitable to form a legal opinion.
The French rule is illogical in that 1000’ is OK at some airfields whereas 3000’ is required at others with the only difference between the airfields being their altitude. I’d guess this rule is often ignored.
What if you just depart, stay in uncontrolled airspace and request your clearance and activation of your flightplan?
That’s what we do in Sweden at our airfield and the IFR clearance usually takes maximum 5 minutes, often you get clearance directly to climb into class C airspace.
to Ted P. The French rule has some logic:
In France below Max(3000 AMSL,1000 AGL) VFR and IFR must be clear of clouds and in sight of ground.
Above Max(3000 AMSL,1000 AGL) VFR must stay away from clouds ( 1000 ft vertically and 1500 m horizontally), so that they can spot IFR traffics popping out of clouds.
To martin-esmi
In Sweden it takes 5 mn, in the UK, as said above, it can take quite longer
The whole point is that you want to be IFR ASAP after takeoff, especially if the conditions are minimal, like cloudbase at 500ft AGL. People have flown into terrain while waiting for their IFR clearance…
If cloudbase is 500" you should not be taking off w/o IFR clearance at all.
The other day I departed from EBZW on a Z flightplan with a 2000" ceiling, with a warm front approaching (deteriorating conditions), called Brussels info who gave me the frequency of Brussels DEP who cleared me to climb to FL060 initially.
If weather is less than favorable for VFR I prefer to obtain a squawk and initial clearance before departing, whether the field has instrument procedures or not, but obtaining the phone number to the appropriate ATS sector is not easy. When planning to do so I make a few phone calls ahead of time to obtain the required phone number(s). From Reims Prunay for example, I know I have to call Paris Ctrl sector TM on a certain ph# (Reims does have IFR aproaches). In Troyes you can call Seine Approach from the ground. I regularly depart IFR from LFPT outside of ATS hours (class G with overlying class A) after having received a departure clearance and XPDR code from De-Gaulle over the phone.
If the weather is relatively good I can depart VFR and pick up my clearance in flight in the air.
In the US you actually do not even need to file a flight plan ahead of time to get an IFR clearance. I remember a flight from Chino to St Monica, CA. Just before cranking up I took a look at the VFR chart and decided it was better to depart IFR rather than having to deal with the complex LAX airspace. I just called tower and requested an IFR clearance to KSMO, got it and departed. Even better, once airborne you can ask for a pop-up clearance and obtain it within a few minutes, which can be very practical in order to avoid detours due to standard departure flows.
If cloudbase is 500" you should not be taking off w/o IFR clearance at all.
However if the cloudbase is 501 feet then you can – in the UK.
