Radar control vs radar coverage

arj1 wrote:

So what conditions must be met for the a/c to be IFR under Eurocontrol?

The term “Eurocontrol IFR” is invented by Peter. It makes some sense when talking about IFR in the UK with its disjointed ATC system, but I don’t see what it would mean in other countries.

Can you explain in other terms what your question is?

@arj1 the non facetious answer to the examiner question of when are you IFR, is ‘when you are not VFR’. IFR in effect is when you are operating below VFR minima.

You would be operating IFR (MSA, semi circular FL, minimum equipment, currency, planning) outside CAS whenever VFR minima are no longer in place.

You would expect radar service in controlled airspace, but not always. You might be in Class A and ATC might downgrade and revert to position reporting. Quite rare in Europe but not unheard of.

arj1 wrote:

So what conditions must be met for the a/c to be IFR under Eurocontrol

Not an IR pilot but based on forums and reading around, I would say:

• Have had your flight plan validated and accepted by Eurocontrol and activated on departure
• Haven’t been dropped either by ATC when moving OCAS more or less explicitly like in UK or at your request.

arj1 wrote:

What makes it possible to fly IFR uninterrupted? What is the formal criteria?

I would say, except when flying through UK FIRs, if you have been cleared to your destination.

The term “Eurocontrol IFR” is invented by Peter.

It clearly means IFR coordinated by the Eurocontrol system. To start with, it is the filing of an “I” flight plan (and not airborne filing which just creates a local “strip”). And it isn’t IFR flight in say Class G, where allowed, which probably nobody knows you are doing it.

What makes it possible to fly IFR uninterrupted? What is the formal criteria?

In “classical IFR” the whole flight is in CAS, all the way from runway to runway. That leads to the phrase “cleared to [destination]” in the departure clearance having some real meaning. The ICAO lost comms procedure is then formally connected with this clearance.

There are some airlines which fly bits OCAS but they get “very close” ATC service and “full attention” In the UK they get a Deconfliction Service from a nearby radar.

If you file “I” (or Y or Z) the FP goes to Eurocontrol (IFPS) and gets distributed to the various countries involved in the route. The distribution takes place at EOBT-X where X is specified by each country – generally of the order of 10-20hrs. So if you file 5 days ahead, nobody sees it until this point.

So that’s the “system”.

Each country then does “things” with the FP. The UK looks at it and – under a confidential procedure – dumps it if it doesn’t look “serious” enough. You discover this only when you depart and the DC gives you a frequency of an area FIS unit which has no radar, no ATCOs, and can’t clear you anywhere I don’t know of another country doing exactly this but for sure there are plenty where the filed route won’t be flyable for all sorts of reasons e.g. crossing a military area which wasn’t notified to IFPS, or popped up since the FP was filed. Some countries deliberately do not notify RA etc activity to IFPS to protect local jobs because a lot of people work in amending flight plans

I think in all of Europe where I have been, if you are in CAS, you are on radar. Obviously this cannot hold true OCAS because if you go low enough you won’t be. But being on radar does not mean you get a radar service, the maintenance of a clearance, etc.

As to the Q in the OP, it seems to be according to a LOA (letter of agreement) between France and the UK; specifically on handovers from France (Lille, or Paris, with Lille seemingly working stuff below FL100 or so) to London Control. Historically, if you were leaving France below FL100 you got Lille and then you always got London Info which silently terminates your clearance as soon as you are handed over. For maximum amusement you got the handover while still in French airspace so had to plummet to FL074 before the airspace border, otherwise you busted UK Class A. In recent years, Paris has been handling lower traffic, and Lille does (IIRC) sometimes hand over to London Control which preserves the clearance.

Obviously there are people out there who know exactly how this works but I have never seen them post anywhere. The France-UK LOA is likely unpublished. In the UK, getting currently working ATC staff to post anything actually useful and detailed seems impossible… well they did all sign the OSA. NATS is a highly politicised company but the whole system is tight and quite reactive to any suggestion it is less than perfect. I post my flying videos on FB and recently posted one where an ATC call saying “pass your message” was captioned with “[unit name] doesn’t know about us” (which is probably spot on correct; that’s what that phrase means on an initial call) and got beaten up by half a dozen UK ATCOs for posting what they saw as a “negative” comment

The UK practice of silently dropping the clearance has been done to death and 100% of UK ATCOs on social media absolutely refuse to accept there is anything wrong with it. They say it is a well known principle, etc. Well, as we discussed previously, it is possibly ok to drop a clearance once out of CAS but only if you either (a) advise the pilot or (b) had previously issued an explicit clearance limit.

However there must also be French ATCOs who know how this works and we do have some here on EuroGA. Perhaps someone from Paris might know.

Peter wrote:

Each country then does “things” with the FP. The UK looks at it and – under a confidential procedure – dumps it if it doesn’t look “serious” enough. You discover this only when you depart and the DC gives you a frequency of an area FIS unit which has no radar, no ATCOs, and can’t clear you anywhere I don’t know of another country doing exactly this but for sure there are plenty where the filed route won’t be flyable for all sorts of reasons e.g. crossing a military area which wasn’t notified to IFPS, or popped up since the FP was filed. Some countries deliberately do not notify RA etc activity to IFPS to protect local jobs because a lot of people work in amending flight plans

I do think, however, it is fair to say that there is no legal basis for this. If a flight plan got accepted (with the possibility to indicate whether or not IFPS re-routing would be accepted) and validated and a flight departed and got an IFR clearance to destination, there is no legal possibility for ATC to declare you no longer IFR. Even in the UK, now admittedly you need to do A LOT of insisting, you will remain IFR. I tested this recently on an IFR flight from LFLP to Doncaster in the UK where they tried to ‘kick me out’ and I simply refused. They nicely routed me within controlled airspace (longer) to destination.

I agree, and anyway you do remain IFR. Remember, in the UK, you can be IFR in Class G, non-radio, non-txp

But being IFR doesn’t mean you have a clearance to enter CAS, or to enter anything else, or to receive any service e.g. advising you a DA ahead is active.

And yes as you say the solution is to remain in CAS. But in much of the UK this involves FL150+. On the previously mentioned EGKA-EGHA run, FL200+.

This is the quid pro quo which the UK has done with GA. GA has always fought for minimal CAS, along with AFAIK the military. So they got it. ATC was more than happy because the less CAS, the fewer ATCOs, and a radar ATCO and his desk is £1M/year+. GA got totally uncontrolled IFR in G, legal DIY approaches, etc. And they got the IMCR in the package – politically possible only because it is banned from Class A. But there is a tradeoff for IFR GA which gets screwed…

However, the UK is not the only one. Lots of countries will make you cancel IFR below a certain altitude, and then you lose any clearance too.

However, I do know of cases where somebody filed a FP via Eurocontrol, got it validated, and flew it. One was a foreign trained pilot, living in the UK, who didn’t know the UK system. He busted CAS all over the place and caused a meltdown in ATC but no action was taken, and I suspect because any good lawyer would win.

Peter wrote:

And it isn’t IFR flight in say Class G, where allowed, which probably nobody knows you are doing it.

That really depend of the country. In France by example you need to speak to someone to be IFR even in class G airspace , so you stay in the system and there is no problem when you get to the next piece of controlled airspace.