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Standard/Non-standard altitudes in cross country VFR flying

Cobalt wrote:

In Class G, however, semicircular rules are completely silly, random altitudes would be much safer

How can you get “random” altitudes?

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

I was taught anything over 3000’ ASFC should be a flight level, using the semicircular rule. This caused a lot of confusion (both me and ATS) when I started flying in the UK, where nobody VFR does this. I looked it up in the AIP (ENR 1.7), and transition layer is 3000’ unless in or under airspace belonging to a list of airports, where it’s 5,000 or 6,000 feet. I’ve spoken to easily 10+ UK pilots who have never heard of the semicircular rule, and have never flown a flight level. Nowadays I use 6,000’, which made life easier. The US model of semicircular rule plus transition level at 18,000 is probably the way forward.

EGHO-LFQF-KCLW, United Kingdom

Airborne_Again wrote:

How can you get “random” altitudes?

Presumably you climb until at the desired altitude, then stop climbing,

For VFR in the US, we do tend to fly at 7500 east, 8500 west and so on. However from my base a lot of VFR flights involve climbing to 7500 or 8000 ft in Class E while never exceeding 3000 ft. agl. so it’s not always something that comes into play, This is continuously below the MEA for IFR traffic.

Airborne_Again wrote:

They are legally required above 3000’ AGL

Where does it say AGL ? I mean, obviously you cannot fly at 3500 feet due to terrain many places. But following the terrain is not cruising. The minimum cruising altitude can be lower than 3000 ft AGL, and I would still use this rule (learned when I got my PPL in 1992)

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

@LeSving
The VFR cruising altitudes apply starting at 3000 feet AGL. Below that, take your pick.

Tököl LHTL

LeSving wrote:

Where does it say AGL ? I mean, obviously you cannot fly at 3500 feet due to terrain many places. But following the terrain is not cruising.

In SERA and ICAO Annex 2 (the international rules of the air).

The minimum cruising altitude can be lower than 3000 ft AGL, and I would still use this rule (learned when I got my PPL in 1992)

Nothing stops you…

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Silvaire wrote:

Presumably you climb until at the desired altitude, then stop climbing,

And how is that “random”? I’m serious. It’s easy to say that you should fly at “random” altitudes, but when people get to choose for themselves, the resulta are far from random.

I guarantee that if you ask a large number of people to name a “random” number from 1 to 100, the distribution will be far from an even 1% for each number.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

The UK, south east in particular, has one of the highest densities of GA in Europe.

I suspect Germany may be similar in places, France may be too but at lower altitudes (traditional aeroclub activity), and nobody else will be even close.

Also the UK has a high % of “invisible” aircraft and I think this will grow (see the huge infringements thread, and various other “privacy” related discussions). Lots of non-txp aircraft flying, most of them non-radio. So even a hefty investment in an active TAS has only a finite benefit.

So strategies need to be adopted to minimise the risk. It’s a small risk, but death is pretty well assured

Obviously the biggest risk is when departing or arriving. You just have to do what you can there, and get out of the area if there are too many around. 10 mins later it is probably quiet.

Enroute, most UK PPLs were trained to fly at 2000ft, so that’s what they do. The annual average is pretty much the same as anywhere else; about 20hrs/year. I am advised certain other countries are even lower… So they don’t fly enough to start acting independently. They do what they always did.

People doing sightseeing fly lower, because it’s more fun, say 1000-1500ft AGL. Even more of these are non-txp…

Some tiny % of traffic, maybe 1%, is above 3000ft.

So, 3500ft / 4500ft should be fairly safe.

But the UK is full of 3500/4500ft airspace, and the UK disregards the ICAO rule about airspace boundaries having the classification of the lower airspace class, so flying at say 3500ft under 3500ft airspace is highly likely to send you for processing to Gasco, under the new zero-tolerance system And a typical VFR flight is planned to pass under these CAS bases.

Hence 3200/3300 or 4200/4300.

Where I am based, it also enables a flight of a reasonable distance to be planned, keeping under CAS with bases down to 3500 or 4500ft, all the way, at one level, thus minimising the “vertical corner” risk.

I won’t do the 2200/2300 under the 2500ft Class A anymore because under the new CAA busts policy this is just too dodgy. It is also full of non-txp aircraft, who are doing that for the obvious and very understandable reasons.

Hope that explains it

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Airborne_Again wrote:

And how is that “random”? I’m serious. It’s easy to say that you should fly at “random” altitudes, but when people get to choose for themselves, the resulta are far from random.

I guarantee that if you ask a large number of people to name a “random” number from 1 to 100, the distribution will be far from an even 1% for each number.

Its an interesting point for discussion, FWIW my choice is often 100 ft off 4500, 5500 ft etc, e.g, at 4400, 5600 ft.

Airborne_Again wrote:

In SERA

Found it, SERA 5005 g to be precise

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway
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