I was always under the impression that the minimum allowed flight altitude for a VFR flight was:
500ft AGL over water or ground, and 1000ft over populated areas.
But apparently in Germany, the minimum allowed altitude for a VFR cross country flight is 2000ft AGL, according to this law: LuftVO § 6.2:
I wasn’t aware of this, and I am sure that most of the Dutch VFR pilots (that learned to fly at 1500ft), are not aware of this rule either…
You can go lower if airspace structure (low class E with clouds) or weather forces you to do so
But apparently in Germany, the minimum allowed altitude for a VFR cross country flight is 2000ft AGL
Yes this rule exists but it seems to have a similar status as semi circular flight levels. If the weather and all other conditions do not object you should follow the rule. But this seems to be nothing which gets you into jail. On a CAVOC day just do not show up on FIS for flight following flying all day at 1000ft AGL.
There seem to be quite a number of such national exceptions. I remember in France they have some special rules on how high you have to fly over a city depending on the number of inhabitants.
On a CAVOC day just do not show up on FIS for flight following flying all day at 1000ft AGL.
You seem to imply that FIS act as air police, which they clearly don’t. They couldn’t care less. Particularly in this case… they just can’t know if there is a cloud above you.
The interesting question is whether, with the effective date of of SERA, national CAAs are still formally allowed to introduce these “addtitional” rules. But hey, whatever the anwer is, they will simply not care and just keep these rules, no matter if this introduces a contradiction with SERA.
NO WAY Germany will ever renounce of the 2000-feet rule, which is a bit of a holy grail here!
But this seems to be nothing which gets you into jail.
The rule was introduced when low flying military traffic was freed from it’s special corridors some twenty years ago. Many of these corridors were restricted airspace and their abolition was a big gain for civil VFR aviation. The agreement was that the militarys are now free to move everywhere but stay below 2000ft AGL and the cilivians are free to move (almost) everywhere but stay between 2000ft and FL100. So you won’t go to jail for flying at 1900ft on a CAVOK day, but when you collide with a Eurofighter at that altitude you probably won’t get as much compensation as if it hits you at 2100ft.
Eurofighter at that altitude you probably won’t get as much compensation as if it hits you at 2100ft.
Ah, good to know! ;-)
It would have been helpful, had you posted also the following:
Die Sicherheitsmindesthöhe darf nur unterschritten werden, soweit es bei Start und Landung notwendig ist. Sicherheitsmindesthöhe ist die Höhe, bei der weder eine unnötige Lärmbelästigung im Sinne des § 1 Abs. 2 noch im Falle einer Notlandung eine unnötige Gefährdung von Personen und Sachen zu befürchten ist. Über Städten, anderen dicht besiedelten Gebieten, Industrieanlagen, Menschenansammlungen, Unglücksorten sowie Katastrophengebieten beträgt die Sicherheitsmindesthöhe mindestens 300 Meter (1.000 Fuß) über dem höchsten Hindernis in einem Umkreis von 600 Metern, in allen übrigen Fällen 150 Meter (500 Fuß) über Grund oder Wasser. Segelflugzeuge, Hängegleiter und Gleitsegel können die Höhe von 150 Metern (500 Fuß) auch unterschreiten, wenn die Art ihres Betriebs dies notwendig macht und eine Gefahr für Personen und Sachen nicht zu befürchten ist.
(2) Brücken und ähnliche Bauten sowie Freileitungen und Antennen dürfen nicht unterflogen werden.
This defines the minimum altitude to be flown – for example over towns, industrial complexes, gatherings of people, accident locations it is 1000 feet above the highest obstacle within 600m, else 500 foot over water or ground.
The paragraph you posted clearly states that flights below 600m may be carried out as long as articles 1 and 2 above are respected, especially if other rules have to be complied with – for example, VFR flight rules (minimum height from clouds in controlled airspace, free of clouds in uncontrolled airspace), ATC directions or similar…… I’ve flown cross country at 1400 feet altitude where my height was around 900 – 1000 feet without comments, mainly because there was a solid overcast at 1500 – 1600 feet hence I was observing the VFR flight rules.
Having said that, I’d not do it deliberately – flying over a built up area such as the Ruhr Valley and having your engine fail at such low altitudes can leave you with precious few options…..
