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The EIR - beginning to end

The airways are on the 1;1million map which you can get with the Complimentaire to VFR and a couple of other things.
You can also download the IFR en route chart (including all airways) free of charge from the SIA website.
I don’t think mode S is necessary to fly these routes but a transponder with at least mode C is carried by most club aircraft.
Most club pilots will only fly these routes if they are actually going somewhere distant. There is no point in climbing to FL65 if you are just going to an aerodrome about an half an hour away and where most of the journey can more simply be made without entering CAS or when transiting is just a matter of asking.
Most club aircraft are also equipped for at least night VFR, which is basically the same as that needed for En Route IFR to some extent but it is restrictions, often by the aircraft manufacturer that stops one flying IMC. Just look at the limitations section of the DA40 POH. IMO the equipment carried in most French club aircraft (not including ULM) is quite sufficient to meet the needs of the EIR pilot and may even be sufficient for the BIR. If regulation/rules allowed that: IMO the EIR and now the BIR could flourish.

France

@Ibra I plan my flights and if my plan ‘B’ would put us in any danger or meant I would need to do illegal flying I would either not have gone or I would have made a 180°. The aircraft I was flying does not have an autopilot and I am quite capable of avoiding illegal flying without pissing off ATSOs and without crashing into obstacles.
I will say no more on this for fear of getting personal.
With good planning there is no problem for the most part in flying at the lower levels in France.
Most SIV speak English as do most military controllers. Some do have stronger perhaps more unintelligible accents than others, but I find the same when I fly in the UK.

France

What always amazed me was that when flying in France there was virtually nobody flying these easy routes. The club traffic flew at very low level (which they could do because they knew the system).

They are not on the VFR map, the Airway and it’s Echo is not shown, the majority of aircraft don’t climb above 5kft for anecdotal reasons (lack of oxygen up there, lack of performance, no mixture and usual habit of keep low profile or local flights), there is also rumour here and there of required IFR equipement to fly Echo Airways routes like certified DME/VOR/GPS (legally nothing required for VMC navigation, even tablet or PLOG is enough) and ModeS transponder (I have not figured yet if it’s required for Echo or not?)

Last Edited by Ibra at 06 Jun 12:23
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

That kind of stuff will not work in France for a foreign pilot because he won’t have a clue to how work the various bits of low airspace, much of which is military and owned by god knows who. Only the locals know how to do that.

Accordingly, the best way to fly “distances” in France is using the Class E (mostly VOR-VOR) routes which have a ~FL065 base. That is true for both VFR (which is however limited to FL115 in much of France) and with the EIR/BIR/IR. What always amazed me was that when flying in France there was virtually nobody flying these easy routes. The club traffic flew at very low level (which they could do because they knew the system).

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

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.

That’s not as wise or safe as you think, this was an examiner with 6kh who is IFR rated in IFR equipped aircraft and he killed his PPL student by running into a hill, he was probably doing your “good impression business”? there was another PA28 aircraft that cruised safely in clouds on straight line untill they did cloud-break in their destination, the pilot who flew the 2nd aircraft had PPL only but he seemed to know what he was doing as far as staying away from terrain & keeping his track

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/204020

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.

Of course it’s a lot of work, you are not helping or doing a favour to anyone going freestyle like that by randomly changing your level and flight path? requesting pop-up clearance? routing here and there? busting lower airspace? in other words not knowing what you are doing !

There are better way to deal with it next time, a relaxed flight where you maintain altitude and 270 heading or some GPS/VOR fix before cloud-break over open water on -500fpm descent by hand or autopilot in Golf then flying safely to your AD, maybe the pilot sitting next to you would have learned something other than freestyle random low flying between holes in the middle of terrain & airspace and pissing every ATS unit out there while increasing traffic collision risks (assuming not getting kill on a hills or losing control)

PS: if you have an autopilot, use it next time by hooking some RNP or DCT, it will buy you more time & safety than freestyle hand flying between clouds, also you will do yourself, ATC, other traffic and innocent people on ground one of the great favours by not flying like a volatile aircraft all over the place in altitude & heading

Last Edited by Ibra at 06 Jun 12:11
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

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.

France

BIR thread

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.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Why get worked up so much? The EIR is history.

We should be talking the BIR instead. Did anyone obtain it already?

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

The EIR is/was a tool to address the largely broken European ATC/airspace system, because it enables access to airspace which is

  • Class A
  • “VFR legal” airspace where local ATC policies (mostly unpublished) keep VFR traffic out (lots of Europe, perhaps notably Zurich Class C, Class D in much of France, etc)

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.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

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.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden
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