Maoraigh wrote:
The difference isn’t so much between CAT and GA as between VFR GA, maybe IFR low-level GA, and the CAT/IFR GA with similar capabilities.
(I’ve seen a B757 GA at Inverness.)
Indeed…CAT and GA are not mutually exclusive…that’s why in Australia it is called RPT (Regular Public Transport), not CAT… I don’t know the stats for Europe but I would guess that there are more commercial GA flights than private…
Peter wrote:
Not working out what “pass your message” means… This is not used elsewhere AFAIK but is surely self evident?
“Pass your message” is the stock reply on initial FIS contact in Switzerland, or if one calls them with a request at some later point after the initial exchange. There must have been an ICAO note on this a few years back, because they started using it very suddenly from a certain date.
Peter wrote:
Europe (not just the UK) doesn’t have the US support for IFR popup clearances.
May not exist any more, but we got one once no-questions-asked in France (Corsica). Were on a VFR island sight-seeing circumnavigation at about 1-2k ft Figari-Figari counterclockwise. Were heading south after Calvi and came to the Ajaccio CTR all fogged in. Asked for an IFR clearance through the fog to Figari and just got it no pb. Of course not exactly the same as asking for a full multi-country cross-country via a pop-up IFR request. I seem to recall getting one into Tours too once at the end of a trip when the wx went south. I suspect that a lot of small-medium French airfields would still allow a pop-up IFR approach if traffic permitted. Maybe someone from France can comment.
I had no problem getting one in Norway. There, and I gather in Sweden as well, ATC for IFR and VFR in lower airspace are not that strongly separated.
In most countries which allow IFR in class G getting a clearance to fly an approach or in a local TMA can be obtained ad hoc. The UK, France, Scandinavia. Callsigns tend to be radar, approach or tower.
A full enroute clearance is a different matter, and in Germany somebody even got prosecuted for failing to plan VFR properly because the crew “forced” a clearance initially refused on grounds that “they should have filed a flight plan”. They got their clearance by declaring to be unable to maintain VMC… and nearly ended up in court, although Inbelieve that after some ruffled feathers ATC saw the obvious idetrimental effect on safety of such a policy and relented.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Actually, the capabilities go quite a bit beyond acting on mayday calls and they do include getting you the TAF and METAR for some airports.
That’s funny. Zurich Info can be very busy serving GA traffic on a nice day and suddenly in jumps Ryanair requesting wx for 3-4 Italian airports…. they are the masters at squeezing the most out of a “free” service, much more so than GA.
A follow up video of the same (original post of this thread) team flying from UK to Germany with more comments about flying in UK.
In America you don’t have to make a reservation to dine at a Pizza Hut, so the UK making anything else more complicated (Air Law, transit clearances, driving) doesn’t surprise us.
It sucks when you compare how fun and relaxing flying in the US under LAX Class B VFR without a flight plan is to looking at the complicated art of flying in the UK.. idk, I love English people but sometimes things are just too darn nonsensical here! :)
Btw the reason I mentioned Pizza Hut is because I’ve been turned away twice now or not having made a reservation :) haha
