speak to ATC on phone is of course another option. Once I chat with them over the lunch and learned that they can easily accept even pop-up IFR request – as long as the flight is to stay inside their FIR and they have time to process the request.
Peter wrote:
Has this been tested in a “big” way?Some years ago I asked in some ATC forum whether I could file e.g. Shoreham to Split IFR, with a VFR section over the Alps, for
Yes, that is standard practise. I do it all the time when flying to e.g. Croatia because the MVA is FL150 but I am clear of terrain at FL110 and that makes the flight family compatible. Just put in a VFR segment for the FL150 portion. Normally ATC ask me to cancel VFR and tell me that I am now responsible for terrain but I remain on the ATC frequency and nothing really changes. As soon as the MVA goes down, they inform me that I am IFR again. I keep the squawk.
So yes, that works.
achimha wrote:
Normally ATC ask me to cancel VFR
IFR I suppose.
Actually, that makes me think, how do you request to re-enter IFR mode with ATC ?
When I fly to pula (or back) I usually fly vfr anyway.
My routing is ehrd-ehn-kpt-breno-ldpl which is virtually a straightline and often they will let me climb to 170 over the alps.
Last year i filed this in reverse (departing from pula) but due to local thunderstorms I had to climb to fl 200 and I headed due west first towards Venice before I could turn north towards Bologna. I went straight from Italian AtC to Munich skipping Austrian atc alltogether.
Once clear of the Alps they asked me if I could descend but I answered negative .. On top of the weather.. So they just let me continu .. Eventually I offered them 175 (and later 165) which they gladly approved..
No idea how this play out but surely I must have been in class A?
(They could have asked me to switch to IFR but strangely they never did!)
PapaPapa wrote:
Actually, that makes me think, how do you request to re-enter IFR mode with ATC ?
By the book “request IFR pickup” but at least in Austria this is routine. You don’t notice that you’re VFR, you stay with the controller and you fly the standard IFR waypoints and then it goes back to IFR automatically. Here’s a sample FPL that I used a couple of times:
(FPL-DEXXX-ZG -C82R/L -SDFGRY/S -EDTH0700 -N0150F120 RIDAR/N0150F120 IFR Y161 MUN DCT LOMRO VFR NOKDA Q100 ARNOS/N0150F120 IFR DCT URAVA DCT LASTI DCT CRE CRE3C -LDLO0210 LDPL -PBN/B2D2S1)
I basically told ATC that I want to fly FL120 instead of FL150. The “VFR” was just pro forma, it was more a visual IFR segment.
Would you not say “XXXXX request IFR clearance”?
regarding filing, I seem to recall it should be according to the last change of the FPL?
i.e. if your FPL corresponds to ZYZYZY then file Y but if it’s like ZYZYZ then file Z
Peter wrote:
Would you not say “XXXXX request IFR clearance”?
When VFR with an IFR flight plan in the system, the correct phrase is “request IFR pickup”. At least in my part of the world 
Vladimir wrote:
@achimha, you filed Z while @tomjnx said it would be Y for such a flight. Can we assume both work?
Yeah that’s because Heubach is not Zurich 
I cannot depart IFR from my airfield.
