Tomorrow I’m taking a day trip to LFAT from EHRD. Weather looks like great VFR, but my preference is always to file IFR. The most reasonable route presented by the autorouter is this:
70nm out of the way, with the only other full IFR alternative being almost entirely over the sea/channel. My requests to Eurocontrol for help don’t get me anything better.
So I tried piecing together my own route, which uses the COA2B departure, but fails validation by saying COA is on a prohibited route.:
So I thought I’d try a Z plan, picking up my IFR clearance at the Belgian border (LUMEN):
This one validates. However I’m wondering what I’ll get when I actually fly. If you look at the route on the airway chart you can see there are no real routes running along the coast:
Does anyone have experience with practical IFR routing along the northern coastline? Will ATC laugh at my plan or will it be no issue?
It’s a bloomin’ mess flying along that area IFR. Well actually not so much the flying part, which turned out to be simple. It’s getting something that validates with Eurocontrol.
I’m sure Autorouter and others do their best but if anyone knows why certain plans are getting turned down I would love to know. PBN and RNAV was supposed to make flying off airways simpler.
I would check for military airspace along there. Eurocontrol doesn’t check for that but you won’t get the route in the day, or could get busted for it.
Otherwise, yeah, you can hack all sorts of “valid” routes using this method.
Tomorrow is Saturday, so I think you stand good chances of flying that route along the coastline, at least as far as Belgium is concerned. The NL, I am not so sure, I think they like to keep military airspace reserved also on weekends….
No issue from COA to LFAT under IFR, it’s the Dutch side that is tricky
The route near Brussels looks like a big hassle and mess for you and ATC?
boscomantico wrote:
The NL, I am not so sure, I think they like to keep military airspace reserved also on weekends
Funny thing is that route is basically clear all the time in NL, and the COA2B departure I originally filed is usually the best way to get to Belgium. So I don’t really understand the restriction. The NL side should be easy…
On this sort of thing I would do a notam route briefing. I don’t know what facilities you have but NATS here do a narrow route briefing and that can be done for anywhere in the world. OTOH tools like FF should show notams active along a planned route also.
Peter wrote:
On this sort of thing I would do a notam route briefing.
I have done this with both FF and visualized via SD to check for airspace activations, etc. Nothing along the route that I can see. So fingers crossed!
The flight yesterday was even easier than expected. Shortly after departing Rotterdam I got an earlier IFR clearance from Dutch Mil (planned start of IFR was after crossing the Belgian border), ironically with a direct COA (which was the part of my original filing that was rejected). I immediately asked for the most direct route possible, and got direct Le Touquet. 
So after all my route wrangling it ended with a direct routing. I probably should have just filed the Autorouter suggested route like I normally do, and the outcome would have been the same. But I really wanted to make it clear to ATC that I wanted a direct route. The trip back was pretty much the same, except I got a couple intermediate waypoints along an essentially direct route.
In any case Le Touquet did not disappoint! I had called ahead to reserve bikes, which were sitting there in the terminal ready for us. Super friendly ATC and airport personnel, and fueling without the Total card was no hassle at all. I said I wanted 20L each side, paid with my debit card, and returned later to find extra fuel in my tanks. No messing with the self serve or waiting for the truck. We rode 15 min or so to the beach, had a nice lunch, then walked through the charming town where we had amazing chocolate truffles at Le Chat Bleu. After a nice ride to the bay and walk along the beach we headed back to the field for the short flight back to Rotterdam with four happy passengers.
5 POB, 23 degrees, 500 fpm climb, 3.5 hrs of fuel. Pretty respectable for an airplane everyone says can’t climb. 
And we spotted our folding-legged twin owned by a prominent member of the EuroGA community…
You had a great day for that trip. We were sitting on the beach also.
I saw what I thought was your plane. Nice refurb!
