alioth wrote:
It was legal in Houston – it was NOTAMed for years as an experimental procedure (complete with the phraseology that ATC would use). I was living there at the time and the NOTAM came up in every single DUATS briefing I did :-)
Fair enough. It was done under a special delegation so was legal. My point was ATC did used to grant high speed a lot in the US until it was pointed out that they are not legally allowed to (at the controller level).
JasonC wrote:
It was never legal but was done a lot. The rule was clarified and ATC told to stop doing it.
It was legal in Houston – it was NOTAMed for years as an experimental procedure (complete with the phraseology that ATC would use). I was living there at the time and the NOTAM came up in every single DUATS briefing I did :-)
Here’s the text of the NOTAM (sorry it’s an image, it’s only available from scanned paperwork):
Peter wrote:
The 250kt speed limit below 10000ft does not apply in Class A?
The SERA speed limit does not. (See my message #24 above.)
There may be an airspace speed limit, but that can be lifted by ATC.
Peter wrote:
The 250kt speed limit below 10000ft does not apply in Class A?
No. VFR it applies in C-G, IFR D-G.
The 250kt speed limit below 10000ft does not apply in Class A?
Peter wrote:
What would be the explanation for my post above which is UK airspace?
Class A. No speed limit.
alioth wrote:
It is (or was) possible in the USA: in the Houston class B, an experimental “no speed limit” departure was put into place (it was NOTAMed for years, and what you’d hear from ATC would be “Airliner 1234 [clearance] no speed limit”, and from then on the aircraft could exceed 250kts. It was only on departure, and I believe the practise has now been ended so the 250kt limit is back.
It was never legal but was done a lot. The rule was clarified and ATC told to stop doing it.
Thanks
Snoopy wrote:
Often had clean speed of 280. No problem, even in usa. Only ones not so happy were germans because of class E shared with some vfr traffic. I think TMZ/RMZ post SERA took care of that.
In classes D, E, F and G the 250 kt speed limit for IFR below FL100 is mandated by SERA and can’t be lifted by ATC. TMZ/RMZ doesn’t matter. A competent authority can lift the speed limit for specific aircraft types if it is necessary for technical or safety reasons.
In classes A, B and C, there is no speed limit for IFR in SERA, but there are frequently airspace speed limits and these can be lifted by ATC.
(The same goes for VFR, except that the 250 kt “unliftable” SERA speed limit also applies in class C.)
