Peter, answer via PM or split if you don’t want this thread off topic (albeit slightly), but in what way do you find out that the flight plan is rejected after being IFPS accepted? Would it be at start up or would it nastily be thrown in somewhere down route?
To make a really off the top of my head example, if I filed Inverness to Biggin at F060 or something, would I get the start clearance and then be dumped out when getting closer to LTMA?
An IFR flight plan filed within the UK at a “silly” low level would still be in the system, in so far as the departure and the destination airports and the regional FIS will have a copy (exactly like with a VFR one) but it will have been silently rejected by what I call the proper IFR authorities (London Control in the south).
So when you call up for a departure clearance at Biggin (let me take Biggin as the departure since I have never tried this in Scotland) the squawk you will get will not be a London Control squawk. It will be a squawk for Farnborough Radar, so your flight is handled like a VFR flight in all respects.
And, importantly, it has no right to be elevated to a high level IFR flight (which in the UK is mostly Class A) because that needs a London Control FP and yours got rejected at the outset. The chances of getting a US-style pop-up clearance in the UK are variable and in the southern parts are close to zero, IME.
I have done this loads of times.
Nowadays I just file for FL140 and that’s it. If I have climbed to FL100 and it’s blue skies all around then I ask for a “stop climb”; they ask if I want to change my cruise level to FL100 (or whatever) and I say Affirm, and everybody is happy.
Loads of IMC Rated (no IFR in Class A) UK pilots have filed IFR flight plans for say 4000ft/FL040 or whatever, thinking it gives them something extra. Well, it might make a very small difference in that some ATC unit might be a little more likely to give you a transit, or an ILS when you arrive there. But really you may as well have not filed anything or, for S&R purposes, filed a VFR FP.
what way do you find out that the flight plan is rejected after being IFPS accepted? Would it be at start up or would it nastily be thrown in somewhere down route?
Your first clue will be that the next unit to call (in the departure clearance) would be Farnborough Radar instead of London Control, or in the specific case of Biggin possibly Thames Radar. Getting Farnborough is a dead giveaway of your flight plan having been in effect trashed. If you are a real anorak and happen to know the range of squawks allocated to different units, you will spot that the squawk is a Farnborough one and not a London Control one.
An example is flying IOM (EGNS) to say Biggin, filed “I” for FL050. Neither Manchester nor London Control will touch this with a bargepole, but you won’t know, except that the next unit will be Valley (an RAF base in N Wales) and the squawk will be Valley too. Your whole flight is OCAS. I have done that too 
The Inverness departure case is out of my area because Scottish Control is a lot more flexible than the southern lot, and they tend to provide a service to lower level traffic too.
would I get the start clearance and then be dumped out when getting closer to LTMA?
Your flight is a VFR OCAS flight in all respects, for its whole length. You never get into enroute CAS in the first place.
My terminology above is incorrect in places because I am not a UK ATCO. I know many UK ATCOs read this but in general they are not allowed to comment. I wish they did. But this subject has come up on UK sites many times and it is never commented on usefully. There is a lot of politics involved in the UK scene, to do with funding and stuff… On one site, one comment made was: what what the hell do we expect when most of us don’t pay route charges. UK IFR ATC is very very competent and professional (well, with the exception of one Manchester Control guy I once had) once you are airborne but there is a lot of funny stuff going on on the ground.
As I say, within the UK, don’t try routing at FL060. Go for FL100 as the base. If you get an excessive route, set your max value higher. I use FL170 but I appreciate many can’t.
The interesting bit would be somebody trying it at say FL060 from Biggin to Biarritz. I think it would get chucked out by Eurocontrol because FL060 is below the French CAS (Class E FL065+ generally). But UK routings don’t get chucked out by Eurocontrol just because they are in Class G. There is a lot of history to this… it was different when I started in 2005 and a lot of stuff did get chucked out.
There is a certain amount of low level IFR in the UK which does get accepted by London Control. It is done for IR training by FTOs, where they want you to show that you can talk to London Control (in between their Speedbird, Ryanair and Lufthansa stuff) I don’t know how these are accepted. Maybe it is the routes (Oxford – Cranfield etc) or the EXAMxx callsign on the flight plan. But EXAMxx is used only for the IR test, not for IR training.
EBST AD is missing unfortunately…..? Can you fix this Achim?
autorouter: support for UK standard routes
We’ve updated the autorouter to generate better routes in the UK.
In order to generate “good routes” in the UK, more information is needed than what is maintained by Eurocontrol and sufficient for routing in the other members states. We have incorporated NATS’ standard route document (SRD) and visually mark route segments taken from this source.
For non UK-pilots, I have assembled a bit of background information on what the issue is and how it is solved.
You can identify standard route segments by the blue dashes in the leg.
We are now seeking for feedback on UK routings and how we apply the SRD. There are a few known issues (e.g. Biggin ALKIN3F arrivals) which we’re working on with NATS/Eurocontrol.
Achima, are you going to support higher routings for turbine aircraft?
Is FL600 high enough? Should work but is obviously much less tested. The faster the aircraft, the more often we run into these PROF error messages where we do not understand how the Eurocontrol profiler treats the climb/descent profiles. That is still a topic we need to better understand with Eurocontrol’s help.
We are FL450 maximum so yes; although when I tried to use it before I had some difficulty with setting up the aeroplane data; it seems to want either fixed pitch or constant speed (propeller) and we don’t have any propeller at all. I wondered if Turboprop button would produce something different but it is greyed out
Peter,
and anyway you cannot go anywhere near the London TMA where the crossings are ~ FL90/100 minimum.
It looks like 3,500ft on my chart?
It looks like 3,500ft on my chart?
I would recommend getting an IR and trying that
Sure you can fly under bits of the LTMA at 2400ft/3400ft/etc.
But LTMA crossings in CAS need to avoid the Gatwick/Heathrow traffic, which starts about 500ft above the CAS base and, depending on where, might go up to say roughly FL070, and there are loads of procedures in there (SIDs, STARs, missed approach paths, etc) so the standard crossing levels for GA tend to be FL090/100 and upwards.
I see the AIRWAY BASE at 3,500ft and the CAS BASE at 2,500ft.
