This – many FP rule changes – came up a long time ago. The general view was that ATC won’t let you get away with it, even if you can get it validated and filed via Eurocontrol. I suspect ATC don’t see that level of detail on their screens. We have numerous ATCOs here so maybe some can comment.
Yes it would be useful at times. Most recently to get around ATC strikes, though in those cases you should need only I x V y I where y is the region on strike. But more often useful for doing a photography mission around the Alps, in the middle of an IFR flight.
For IMCR pilots, this is usually not applicable because you can’t go into Class A so London Control tosses out the FP so you are basically a VFR-OCAS flight, hence the FP route is immaterial because you still have to negotiate it all the way. So if going say EGKA-EGJJ and crossing the piece of France that sticks out
your “I” FP (which will be in the Eurocontrol system even though London Control ejected it out of its UK FP database) will start off “OCAS” (i.e. essentially VFR even if you are in IMC 
) but will be visible to French ATC, in what is presumably a VFR portion (because the IMCR is no good for IFR outside UK FIR), but may not be visible to Jersey Control which normally does the CI airspace on initial entry. I am not sure about the last bit though… given that EGJJ will be in the address list anyway (because V Z Y flight plans go not only to Eurocontrol but must also go to dep+dest +various/other via AFTN) they will probably have your details.
thanks for the clarifications Peter
Thanks for the replies.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Couldn’t you have filed an Y flight plan with a change of flight rules to VFR at the first convenient point after Sion? Even if you had to file FL160, you would never actually need to climb that high before cancelling IFR. Then a change back to IFR over lake Geneva.
Buckerfan wrote:
Sion has a “low performance IFR departure” procedure for aircraft that cannot get to 16,000 ft in the 20 or so NM required. It involves climbing above and east of the airfield and back inbound to be at 8,000 overhead before departing on the normal 250 degree outbound track. It is the SPR1J departure.
Buckerfan wrote:
I think you could have persuaded the tower to allow you to depart IFR, climb VFR once on top of the layer per this procedure, and then climb out on the IFR track again.
Buckerfan wrote:
Also, it is very rare to get the kind of low level layer you describe at Sion. Happens usually only on still cold mornings. As soon as the starts to heat the mountain slopes and cause air to rise at high level this pulls air into the valley at low level and dissipates the layer you describe.
WillC wrote:
Yes but it appears that I’d need to put a specific point of the SID into the flight plan which at the time would have been BERAR at not less than 16,000’. But as Buckerfan points out I could probably have made that GRANA on the flight plan for purposes of changing flight rules even if I didn’t actually fly that part of the departure.
Yes, but you can cancel IFR an any time — you don’t need to wait until the point indicated in the flight plan. (At least if you’re in airspace where you either don’t need a VFR clearance or don’t expect any issues with getting one — but this is something you could have agreed with the tower in advance.)
Airborne_Again wrote:
Yes, but you can cancel IFR an any time — you don’t need to wait until the point indicated in the flight plan. (At least if you’re in airspace where you either don’t need a VFR clearance or don’t expect any issues with getting one — but this is something you could have agreed with the tower in advance.)
The specific point on the SID for a change of rules was to maintain a continuous flight plan. If I’d cancelled IFR before that point would that mean cancellation of the flight plan as well which is what I wanted to avoid. I think that in practice you’re right that if I’d negotiated with the tower before hand that would have been the way to go.
WillC wrote:
If I’d cancelled IFR before that point would that mean cancellation of the flight plan as well which is what I wanted to avoid.
It would not. Cancellation (or closing) of the flight plan is something else.
Airborne_Again wrote:
It would not. Cancellation (or closing) of the flight plan is something else.
Thanks – hopefully I won’t come across that situation again but it’s nice to know the options.
As a general point, be very careful with cancelling IFR. It entitles ATC to dump you off your flight plan / dump you out of CAS / block you from re-entering CAS. In Europe the difference in service is massive.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but when you cancel IFR your flight plan doesn’t get tossed out the window, it simply becomes a VFR flight plan. You still need to close it with a tower or over the phone if landing uncontrolled.
Dimme wrote:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but when you cancel IFR your flight plan doesn’t get tossed out the window, it simply becomes a VFR flight plan. You still need to close it with a tower or over the phone if landing uncontrolled.
Exactly — although there may be issues with the flight plan addressing if you do an unplanned change of flight rules to VFR.
