With SERA, pop up IFR is available in all EU member states
I do not believe for 1 second that this will ever be implemented.
In UK airspace, it would need a Bolschevik-sized revolution. Can you imagine London Control accepting pop-up traffic from Class G? The people staffing the service are superbly competent and helpful but the system is just not in place, and the whole NATS ethos is “sub-2T GA doesn’t pay so no business case can be made”.
I guess they would be happy to do it if route charges were extended below 2T but do we want that? A pilot with an IR should use it end to end OR execute a VFR flight having checked that the wx is VFR end to end. If you use your IR properly, you will very rarely need an unplanned change to IFR while enroute.
Currently we have small but noticeable IR holder numbers getting killed because they want to avoid the 2T route charges (or because they aren’t carrying oxygen). If route charges were extended downwards, the numbers of deaths would rocket.
I do not believe for 1 second that this will ever be implemented.
One reason more to persue that ADL AFIL integration thing, just for the look on the face of an ATCO who refused you for not having filed a flight plan and then having to take you because you just filed one…
ADL AFIL is really a great idea. After all you will use the information from the device in your decision making. An opportunity for collaboration between you guys!
Can you imagine London Control accepting pop-up traffic from Class G?
No, but I would expect London Information to do the AFIL after which the flight would look no different to London Control than any IFR flight. Or?
There are occasions that I fly VFR within The Netherlands from one place to another without a flightplan files. Enroute, we call ATC and ask for an IFR join and continue our way IFR enroute and for landing. No big deal. I have tried flying VFR in Germany and intended to land at Niederrhein-Weeze but decided that I would like to continue IFR and further to Lelystad. Could not get it done in the air and had to land first in Germany. Last year on one flight from Courchevel in the French Alps, there was no controller there in the tower and you cannot contact anyone else. Somehow there was no phone signal for me to file my IFR flightplan before departure using an app so I just departed and enroute contacted Chambery Approach and asked to join IFR thus departing from Courchevel all the way back to Rotterdam. That was no problem at all.
The easiest thing is to file IFR and if the weather is good on arrival cancel IFR and land visually. We do that a lot, as it saves time.
so I just departed and enroute contacted Chambery Approach and asked to join IFR thus departing from Courchevel all the way back to Rotterdam. That was no problem at all.
Out of curiousity: who did that work in detail: did you dictate the whole flightplan to him, including the IFPS compliant routing?
Did you think he passed it on to the relevant BRIA or somehow created an IFR clearance all the way to Rotterdam without that?
The easiest thing is to file IFR and if the weather is good on arrival cancel IFR and land visually. We do that a lot, as it saves time.
When I want to do that I rather request a visual approach, not cancel IFR.
When I want to do that I rather request a visual approach, not cancel IFR.
If they let you. If your destination airfield is in one of the former “class F” or otherwise uncontrolled airspaces you have to cancel IFR before you can do your visual approach. I’ve been lectured about that a dozen times already by various controllers…
That is interesting and I didn’t know that. Only ever flew visuals into airports with controlled airspace.
It probably has to do with the holiness of VFR traffic patterns at uncontrolled airfields in Germany. If you don’t fly an instument approach, they want you to fly the published VFR procedures, and in order to do that, you need to be VFR..
