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Eurocontrol "law"

I am just wondering… How come Eurocontrol has its own set of rules despite SERA/NCO etc?

For example >FL095 B-RNAV is required by Eurocontrol. Where can I find the law that actually contains this rule? Or can they just require whatever they like?

I thought I just got the hang of reading EASA/EU rules… Hope somebody can point me in the right direction. Thanks!

Good question and without being an expert on the question I think ICAO DOC 8168 volume II sections II and III where they talk about enroute sections and “Minimum altitudes for signal reception” and so on. VORs do have limits.

EKRK, Denmark

Is it not based on the RAD ?
Is this limitation for the whole airspace or just in a specific area ?

ELLX (Luxembourg), Luxembourg

Much to the unhappiness of Eurocontrol, and probably to the great relief of many, Eurocontrol do not make law or airspace rules.

Airspace rules are still made by the individual states (EASA didn’t get their mitts on that), and individual states coordinate through ECAC, in which Eurocontrol plays a leading role. So in practice, Eurocontrol says “we need RNP5 from FL100”, the ECAC will debate and agree this, and then individual countries implement.

Sometimes silly stuff happens – for example “Airspace above FLxxx should be Class C” was intended to mean “should be AT LEAST Class C” (the rule was proposed to ensure that IFR traffic always receives separation from everything, and C achieves that) which in the end turned into nonsensical downgrades from Class A or B, and I am never sure at what point this got lost in translation.

States can also be Eurocontrol members, and as such have delegated parts of air traffic management to Eurocontrol, which is all about which flight plans can be filed, which routes can be flown, and what clearances one can expect within that airspace.

Biggin Hill

Cobalt wrote:

Sometimes silly stuff happens – for example “Airspace above FLxxx should be Class C” was intended to mean “should be AT LEAST Class C” (the rule was proposed to ensure that IFR traffic always receives separation from everything, and C achieves that) which in the end turned into nonsensical downgrades from Class A or B, and I am never sure at what point this got lost in translation.

Is this the reason for the no VFR above FL285 rule?
I always wondered why airspace above FL285 wasn’t class A instead.

ESTL

You mean FL 245? I believe this is even older – much older than the ICAO airspace classification. The ICAO standard was that above FL245 is “upper airspace”, which is still structured differently (large flight information regions, for example) and there was no VFR in upper airspace in general. This did not imply separation, as Class A airspace would, just a prohibition

A prohibition of VFR in Class G is completely meaningless at these altitudes.

The instrument flight rules basically are “1,000/2,000 above whatever, unless necessary for take-off or landing”. That’s it.
The visual flight rules are “stay in VMC”. That’s it.

Unless you under air traffic control, both rules allow you to do whatever you want to do.

Biggin Hill

Cobalt wrote:

Much to the unhappiness of Eurocontrol, and probably to the great relief of many, Eurocontrol do not make law or airspace rules.

My impression is that in the same way that EASA prepares trillions of rules for the EU, Eurocontrol also prepares a few rules for EU – e.g. the 8.33 kHz legislation. Do you agree Cobolt?

huv
EKRK, Denmark

Yes they do – but a lot of the stuff they would like to do does not make it, which is different to EASA, which after consultation just gets rubber-stamped by the commission and where required parliament without much scrutiny

Biggin Hill
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