Silvaire wrote:
However it is true that I could no more imagine my VFR flying limited to a kind of preplanned and filed quasi-IFR in which ATC contact and direction is mandatory than I could imagine doing the same with a motorcycle or car.
Well, things are as they are. As far as Norway goes, inside Schengen, outside EU, meaning customs, I cannot really imagine the requirement for filing a full flight plan when crossing the border will ever be revoked. But I have been surprised before, so who knows. Driving a car or MC, walking or swimming, you can expect to be stopped by those customs dudes when crossing the border anyway. Statistically, not so much though. During my entire life, I have been stopped once in a random check.
There is no 1:1 connection between a flight plan and contact with ATC. There are no requirements for radio or transponder in Norway. You can fly all the way from Lindesnes to Nordkapp without those two gadgets, and you can do it that way with or without flight plans. This is fully optional. You can do it any way you like. Instructing cross country flight we always teach filing flight plan and staying in touch with ATC (information mostly in G), because this is something every pilot should know. It’s the preferred way cross country, because it makes SAR work optimal, and it also simplifies the A to B flight for you. And it’s the only way when flying to other countries.
I don’t see how this is anything like IFR though. But then I don’t fly IFR so I don’t really know.
I don’t understand why some people consider filing flight plan great hassle. Especially in today’s world when you can simply submit it from your mobile phone. When you decide to fly somewhere I guess you somehow plan it, so you check the en-route and destination weather which means you probably entered this route in some planning software. From there to submitting plan is just one click. I can’t understand that it’s so hard.
VFR FPs are indeed easy, even with a phone.
IFR ones are harder, potentially with some spanners thrown in. You have the Autorouter, or Foreflight (Iphone only), or Rocketroute, and these sometimes just fail to work. But that is how the Eurocontrol system is set up. No way around it.
Every so often this bites you in the bum, really badly. I’ve had many occassions of tearing my hair out, unable to get a route to validate. Best remembered is walking up and down the harbour at Hania LGSA trying to get a route to Odessa UKOO (those were the days), 5am, and eventually capitulating, scrapping most of that trip and flying to Brac LDSB. This was years ago but can still happen, though less likely.
That’s why I carry a laptop on any nontrivial trip.
I am off to Le Touquet this weekend. I will file IFR so that
Re immigration, the police is there HRS AD so no PN (they told me this although the website says 2hrs PN). So this is an example for the OP where things are slightly vague but “work out in the end”. As he is in Sweden, he will in practice need to deal only with Norway or the UK; everything else is in schengen + EU.
This thread is really about how to brief before a flight in Europe. C+I is just one of a number of things. There is potentially a lot to do, even within EU+schengen. Airport AIP, airport NOTAMs (you can get these from the EuroGA airport database) so there is PN/PPR to do. The flight plan. And of course checking the wx.
For the UK, you need the FP and the GAR which you file via the govt site. With the GAR, practically every airfield in the UK has C+I. But many are also PN/PPR. You can just call them. They all speak English 
The trick is what to do if you forgot to do it the day before and you are departing before they open.
Europe has endless ways of creating pointless requirements. EU+schengen has taken out some of these but only in the sense of opening up the list of destinations.
Thread merged into an existing one 
Thanks Carl, much appreciated
Peter wrote:
but can still happen, though less likely.
Extremely unlikely.
That’s why I carry a laptop on any nontrivial trip.
As I wrote many times, all these stuff can be done on iPad, even commercial crews do that on iPad (even without back-office help).
Airport AIP, airport NOTAMs (you can get these from the EuroGA airport database) so there is PN/PPR to do. The flight plan. And of course checking the wx.
I can’t understand how anyone can skip checking AIP (especially for new to him/her airport), NOTAMs or weather.
Europe has endless ways of creating pointless requirements.
I agree but flight plan is IMO not one of them or if sometimes we find it pointless at least it’s not complicated.
I don’t understand why some people consider filing flight plan great hassle.
Can you imagine having to file a flight plan with government every time you drive your car or motorcycle? The cost of flying per hour is not a significant consideration to me and I’m generally not on a mission. While I do take trips in my plane, my flying is otherwise only to a limited degree about going from A to B. I often fly without a particular destination, exploring the terrain just like I ride a motorcycle. Having several airports to choose from I make up my mind where to land en route. A cellular connection is not assured everywhere I land. I might do some circuits at one place, see nobody parked there I know and continue. Or after some air work I might change my mind, turn around and go home. Sometimes on the way home, having extended my flight due to nice weather, loitering around an unexpectedly spectacular spring wildflower bloom 100 miles from home or whatever, I end up landing at a completely different airport than I had originally anticipated to top off my tanks. Occasionally I see a friend on ADS-B or hear him on air-to-air, then chase him down and follow him to wherever he’s going. In Europe the distances involved In these flights could easily put one in another country. I don’t like telling anybody what I’m doing, and adjusting the record if I change my mind when there is no benefit to me in doing so. Having to do so while people on the ground wouldn’t dream of having to do the same would be a complete turn off from the activity.
Extremely unlikely.
Depends
even commercial crews do that on iPad
Yes; standard routes
I can’t understand how anyone can skip checking AIP (especially for new to him/her airport), NOTAMs or weather.
The PPL (or the IR) doesn’t really cover the use of the internet
And lots of people end up thinking that filing a FP somehow authorises the flight and the landing, magically clearing through CAS, DAs, etc And why not? It would be logical. Instead, an FP is practically totally worthless.
Can you imagine having to file a flight plan with government every time you drive your car or motorcycle?
No. But I can’t imagine going somewhere by car and being concerned about en-route weather either. Or being concerned about parking unavailable at my destination, or public lighting being turned off, or fuel unavailable at particular gas station. Or a dozen other things that would concern me when aviation related.
The PPL (or the IR) doesn’t really cover the use of the internet
It might happen, but surely it is more the exception than the norm. Maybe it happens a bit more in the UK, where everything in flighttraining seems to always be more backward than elsewhere.
I remember when I was actively instructing PPL, in 2005, I showed my students all the important internet sources, like Eurocontrol (for AIPs), flugwetter.de (for weather), DFS (for NOTAMs and flights). And that was not because it was me, more or less everybody did it.
Today, even the 70+ year old FIs are versed with all this. One could even argue that there is sometimes too much „internet“ action going on.
I can’t imagine going somewhere by car and being concerned about en-route weather either. Or being concerned about parking unavailable at my destination, or public lighting being turned off, or fuel unavailable at particular gas station.
None of those are factors in my flying, except weather sometimes, and I can assure you that when I ride a motorcycle for days on end in Europe weather can be more a factor than when flying my plane at home. Filing a plan of my route in advance with government isn’t relevant and wouldn’t help anything in either case.
