Ibra wrote:
No, just business as usual of flying and delaying with terrain & weather
Ok, then you have an understanding of the rules which is entirely different from mine.
I don’t recall there is a need to declare an emergency when performing 180deg turns in IMC? are you saying PPL pilot should sqwak 7700 and inform ATC of their mayday before performing that turn?
Now you’re just being silly. Of course you don’t have to declare an emergency to ATC or squawk 7700 to exercise your emergency authority. If you inadvertently enter IMC while VFR, that’s an emergency. If you do it deliberately, then it is a violation if the visual flight rules.
If you inadvertently enter IMC while VFR
You climb above your MSA to cruise in IMC (if you are IR rated) or VMC on top (if you have PPL), trust me both are legal (in Golf, let’s keep Echo & Alpha airspaces aside as things will get mis-understood and some ATC or US/German pilot will have a heart attack on this forum), you declare the emergency on your head and do whatever you wish with it !
If you do it deliberately, then it is a violation if the visual flight rules.
But no one flies deliberately in IMC while VFR? they get caught because clouds are in their aircraft trajectory, or poor decision making & poor expectations, the question what can be done about it, the climb to VMC on top is one legal option out of many, there are plenty of other choices other than unsafe (and illegal) descents bellow minimal terrain altitude…
This debate is now totally confused.
Might be an idea to go back at how the founding fathers of the EIR envisaged it would operate. I recall reading posts by some of them but I was always doubtful as to how it would work with real-world ATC.
Ibra wrote:
But no one flies deliberately in IMC while VFR?
Well, that’s what you wrote. You called it “business as usual”.
they get caught because clouds are in their aircraft trajectory, or poor decision making & poor expectations, the question what can be done about it, the climb to VMC on top is one legal option out of many, there are plenty of other choices other than unsafe (and illegal) descents bellow minimal terrain altitude…
The reason for the confusion is that this discussion was never about inadvertent IMC but about the usefulness of the EIIR. You’re the one that (silently) brought in the topic and no one else is talking about that.
The reason for the confusion is that this discussion was never about inadvertent IMC but about the usefulness of the EIIR. You’re the one that (silently) brought in the topic and no one else is talking about that.
Thanks for the clarification, it’s good to have someone like your who can keep track of the discussion but I am still not convinced that the EIR does add much utility to what vanilla PPL allows as far as VMC/IMC are concerned? feel free to have a different opinion on technicalities like inadvertent/deliberate (anyone with licence is thought how clouds looks like? and how to fly inside? or how avoid them? or how to fly on instruments?)
The ability to file Z & Y FPL on EIR comes handy when it comes to CAS & ATC though but that is a completely different topic (you can legally file in Eurocontrol, be eligible for ATC IFR separation and getting entitled to operate in Alpha airspace)
Ibra wrote:
I am still not convinced that the EIR does add much utility to what vanilla PPL allows as far as VMC/IMC are concerned?
I think we are all in agreement on that one. Possibly it is useful in parts of Europe with large areas of class A.
The EIR is/was a tool to address the largely broken European ATC/airspace system, because it enables access to airspace which is
So the ideal is right but you need to be a clever and cunning bastard to use the EIR effectively, however, due to the need to know how to game the system to get the post-departure IFR clearance which you probably want to get ASAP and not after an hour. You have to formally avoid a SID but that will be the case anyway because you must depart VFR and you need to formally avoid a STAR because you must arrive VFR (the IMCR is the obvious exception there).
One problem I always forecasted is that the arrival will often be quite similar to “illegal VFR” and you need to do that carefully to avoid a CFIT. For example, take classic illegal VFR into La Rochelle or Biarritz (illegal VFR is fine for coastal airports but not safe for much of Switzerland 
). You fly above some overcast all the way to the handover from regional INFO to LFBH tower. Before you call up LFBH tower, you fly out over the sea, Class G, and descend below the cloud, and then call them up, and you are VFR and no lies need to be told 
The EIR forces you to do something similar, because if you don’t, ATC may assign you a STAR (which you would then have to refuse which will draw mega attention to yourself which is not a great idea).
The EIR would often put you in a position where things have to be said on the open radio which will be recorded and which could enable somebody to bust you, if they wanted to. It’s a bit like if you don’t have an IFR approved GPS you have to keep asking for the NDB/DME IAP which of course you fly with GPS
This thread deals with the EIR to BIR conversion.
Why get worked up so much? The EIR is history.
We should be talking the BIR instead. Did anyone obtain it already?
The EIR is a useful exercise for examining how Europe can cock things up and put a lot of effort into something almost completely useless.
Yesterday I flew LFFK-LFRQ-LFFK. The aircraft is equipped well enough for limited IMC but is not certified for it.
The weather showed alternating scattered, broken, overcast between 3000ft to 5000ft along the route.
So I planned, if there was a hole at LFFK where Sc was forecast and a hole in the region of Rospo where Sc was forecast at around the time I would arrive there.
I planned for the most part to fly airways at FL65 which would make it easier to cross the various CAS and much less in the way of frequency changes, transit permissions and changes to the route. A simple flight.
It didn’t work out that way, I got the necessary hole and got a climb to transit Nantes CAS.I climbed to FL65 and for a while the clear blue skies were wonderful. But suddenly the clouds began to rise quickly. A climb above them was not a good idea. They were rising too quickly to out climb and there was every chance that they would get above FL100 and there was no oxygen on board.
It meant descending and ducking under and around cloud and a lot of work dealing with the various airspace owners who were all quite busy with parachuting, gliders and lots of GA. Nantes were very busy with arrivals and it was necessary to avoid cutting across the missed approach.
A lot of work.
Both, myself and the aircraft were quite capable of dealing with entering IMC and illegally driving through the clouds. As A_A wrote, no one would probably have been any the wiser. However, I was accompanied by 2 students and although I am not their instructor I think he would be very unhappy if I gave them the impression that committing infractions are no problem as long as you don’t get caught.
With EIR, BIR, or CBIR this flight would have been no problem and legal, providing the aircraft was certified for flight in IMC.
Our aircraft has a GNS 430 a G5 and back ups for AI, ASI, altimeter etc. However, it does not carry the IFR approved label which is an area I would like to see EASA being a little more flexible over. (I know its says equipment necessary rather than being prescriptive, but it is not always as simple)
I have to write how helpful all the ATSOs were and apologise to the Nantes ATCO for descending to avoid a cloud without asking permission first.
Bosmantico is right though that the EIR is coming to and end and the training industry, including our clubs need to get together and make it as simple, straightforward and cost effective as possible to transit to the BIR or the CBIR.
