In the recent threads it was often mentioned that IFR flights are started without a clearance on the ground and/or from uncontrolled airports. Being an IR noobie I don’t know about that possibility and how it is handled. I always thought one has to get an IFR clearance on the ground, either by an SID or a clearance in the type of "climb straight ahead, at 3000ft turn left heading 300, climb further, etc. and if this was not available the only other option was to file a Z flight plan.
Can someone elaborate on how such flights commence (or are even completely flown from point A to point B if not entering CAS)? How do you plan the routing and altitudes? Is there a difference between flying such a flight vs flying VFR if both are without a flight plan, except that if flying IFR the weather can be worse than VMC?
We were talking about IFR flights with a “Z” flightplan that start from an uncontrolled field!
Vladimir wrote:
How do you plan the routing and altitudes?
it´s easier than you might think – just pick up any IFR point (waypoint/VOR) nearby your departure aerodrome where you with to enter airways, put this waypoint/ as the first point on your flight plan route and you are good to go. Example of the flight plan in the area between Brno and Vienna, the IFR is to start at MIKOV – just at CZ AT border. – LKKY1835 -N0137F080 MIKOV/N0137F080 IFR M984 STO M725 DENUX L856 TAGAS…….in reality, you might get your IFR clearance much sooner, as soon as you are above MRVA – see other thred.
there is no difference for flight plan filling if you are flying in CAS or outside CAS, you don´t care. if you want to stay completely in CAS you need to carefully select altitudes and study country regulations – in CZ you need to be above FL95 unless in TMAs, but I am sure it´s country by country.
Vladimir wrote:
In the recent threads it was often mentioned that IFR flights are started without a clearance on the ground and/or from uncontrolled airports. Being an IR noobie I don’t know about that possibility and how it is handled. I always thought one has to get an IFR clearance on the ground, either by an SID or a clearance in the type of "climb straight ahead, at 3000ft turn left heading 300, climb further, etc. and if this was not available the only other option was to file a Z flight plan.Can someone elaborate on how such flights commence (or are even completely flown from point A to point B if not entering CAS)? How do you plan the routing and altitudes? Is there a difference between flying such a flight vs flying VFR if both are without a flight plan, except that if flying IFR the weather can be worse than VMC?
I can give you a concrete example from my home airfield (Sundbro ESKC, VFR only). When the tower of a nearby military airfield is closed, the airspace is class G up to 4500 ft. I would plan the flight as any other IFR flight and file an I flight plan. I would choose the route and level as for any other flight. (Except that for level flight in class G, I will have to select a crusing altitude according to the semicircular rule.) No SID of course, but not all IFR airports have SIDs anyway. I do have to ensure that I can climb to the IFR minimum safe altitude without impacting terrain and obstacles. My airfield is on flat terrain and the nearest significant obstacle is about 10 km away, so that’s not a problem.
After takeoff, I turn on track and call the FIS (in this case the ATC for the Stockholm TMA sector above) to activate my flight plan. At this point, I’m flying uncontrolled IFR in class G, climbing to the base of controlled airspace (or lower depending on my cruise altitude). The controller replies with a squawk and QNH. When he sees me on radar, I get the clearance. If I got my squawk from the autorouter, I have it already set and then I’ll get the clearance immediately. I’ll also get traffic information – in most cases “No traffic reported in uncontrolled airspace”.
Once I have the clearance, I proceed like any other IFR flight. Nothing in particular happens if and when I enter controlled airspace. If I continue to fly in class G, I will get traffic information and handovers as required. The only major hassle is that as my clearance isn’t valid in class G, I don’t have implied permission to cross R-areas so I have to ask permission for every R-area I plan to cross.
Of course, on departure I have to be able to handle the possibility of not making radio contact. If I could maintain contact with the ground until climbing past the minimum safe altitude (1900’ in my case) it is no problem – I just drop back out of the clouds, revert to VFR and divert. If the cloud base is lower, I don’t enter IMC until I get the clearance. That could mean I have to fly VFR for a short while. If the cloud base/visibility is so low that I couldn’t fly VFR at all, then I have a problem. In that case I will not take off unless I know for certain that I can reach visual conditions while still in class G airspace and without descending below the minimum IFR altitude.
Airborne_Again wrote:
file an I flight pla
this might be the country by country, in some countries you can´t depart I from the uncontrolled airport (assuming controlled airport have controlled zone which is almost true). So somewhere you need to go for Z flight plan, not I.
Michal wrote:
this might be the country by country, in some countries you can´t depart I from the uncontrolled airport (assuming controlled airport have controlled zone which is almost true). So somewhere you need to go for Z flight plan, not I.
That’s true. In another thread, Boscomantico said that it is permitted in the UK, France, Norway and Sweden. But that doesn’t make all that of a difference. You just have to specify a point for the transition to IFR. You could could give the coordinates for your departure airfield!
So shortly said you give yourself your own clearance (meaning headings, speeds, altitudes) for the takeoff and initial climb until you reach a place where ATC will issue the real clearance and take over but as opposed to a Z flight you can go into IMC (hoping you won’t hit someone, the probabilities of which were discussed in the other threads).
Yes, though the legal ability to enter IMC before collecting the IFR clearance is still dangerous because you cannot enter CAS without a clearance.
In the UK, a delay in collecting the IFR clearance typically means that you cannot climb above some level, which on bad days leaves you plodding along in IMC and, in the winter, icing conditions which can accumulate enough ice to prevent you climbing once you do get the IFR clearance!
Take for example the scenario of departing from Shoreham EGKA to the north. Due to Gatwick EGKK, you normally get the provisional clearance to GWC and then maybe CPT, as shown by the red track here
and you need to only look at the airspace labels to see that you cannot go above 4500ft, or 5500ft if you go a bit west. And I have been stuck in that position all the way to CPT which is about 50nm. One can see why (Heathrow EGLL traffic, etc) but it does illustrate the problem.
Going out of Shoreham to the east or south-east (basically going to Germany/Czech/Croatia/etc/etc) is obviously “cleaner” because while you are still stuck to 5500ft you can just sit there, going in the direction you want to go anyway, and eventually you will leave UK airspace 
I have frequently flown to the south and not got the IFR clearance before leaving UK airspace. Last time in fact I climbed (OCAS) to FL074 and got ice so had to go back down again…
The bottom line is that when doing this you must have a PLAN for what EXACTLY to do if the IFR clearance doesn’t turn up. You can’t hover, and you don’t really want to do a 180 because that will waste fuel. The least-crap option is to fly OCAS in the desired direction; you burn more fuel but at least you are making progress.
So I would have more than one “next frequency” worked out. The last time I did this was departing out of St Yan LFLN when the first two IFR units were not responding (a weekend) and I was heading for some CAS…
A part of the “game” is to present ATC with a fait accompli whenever possible. So, taking the middle pic above, let’s say there is a lot of cloud around SFD but you can reach VMC on top at 5000ft. In that case do all the avoidance and climbing, OCAS, before calling up for the clearance. ATC will “never” ask you to descend back down. Whereas if you called them up while underneath some piece of CAS whose base is 2500ft, an easy option for them is to leave you at 2400ft for the next 50nm. ATC are normally helpful but there are limits to everything. So always position yourself for the best outcome before calling up for the IFR clearance.
Vladimir wrote:
give yourself your own clearance (meaning headings, speeds, altitudes)
I would not call it own clearance, I would call it VFR flight – you might remember, that´s the way you were told to fly during PPL training. And exactly as Peter mentioned, you need to have a plan when the actual IFR clearance is not granted.
What Peter described looks UK specific, my experience with LK, LZ, ED, LO, LJ and LD airspace is more positive, you´ll get IFR clearance very soon. but I am sure there are exeptions.
@Vladimir What @Peter just described is very UK focused. There is a very sharp distinction between CAS and OCAS. If you look at Germany it is a different situation. In Germany airspace G is only really low level and then everything is E. For VFR it means you can do what you want but for IFR you do need a clearance.
In all my flights since last year whenever I departed from a VFR field in Germany I got the proper IFR clearance in usually less than 5 minutes after takeoff. For example, taking off from EDFC (Aschaffenburg) many times the RADAR controller was already asking for me on the frequency. When I responded I got an initial heading “suggest heading 090” and the next call was “ready to copy clearance”.
Last week I took off from EDXQ (Rotenburg) and as soon as I left the area of the traffic pattern I switched to the RADAR frequency and got the squawk together with a climb instruction. Then the next call was the clearance together with “IFR starts when passing 3000”. When I finished reading back I was already past 4000.
The only place where it took longer to get the IFR clearance was when taking off from EDNX (Schleissheim) near Munich. The approach controller was quite busy and I had to stay underneath the class C of EDDM. Then I was already that far north that I only got a change of frequency and the next controller provided the clearance. I had traveled 20 NM until I got the clearance.
