I suspect you might have a dearth of respondants willing to admit publicly to illegal activity in in this respect – especially now the UK is not in the EU.
I did meet someone back when the UK was in the EU that claimed to have a local arragemment whereby he notified French Douanier when he left for the UK – but that is decidedly not what you are asking about.
Why you would do that that would be damn (illegal) stupid? file LeTouquet and fly toward it before asking ATS to fly to your alternate due to weather (thunderstorm), when ATC asks what is your alternate? tell them Oxford and have GAR & FPL for LeTouquet-Oxford
PS: it will have lot of consequences if POB are subject to immigration & aircraft has no VAT
I have met several Brits who claim they have done it in both directions, without apparent consequence. I have no idea what the border force would do about it, but I suppose they have options.
But like with many laws the people that break them often get away with it, whilst the people that obey the rules seem to end up suffering ever stricter regimes.
This is not, definitely not, by no means advice to ignore the regulations.
has anyone just taken off from France (non customs airport) and flown back to the UK, filing a flight plan and GAR
When I started flying 20 years ago, this was done all the time because France was not enforcing Immigration anywhere. The UK also did not care about the GAR form. Life was good 
Today, I would definitely not file a flight plan that is itself illegal. I have personally seen this done and seen the tower staff cancel the flight plan, saying it is not legal. The way this sort of thing is done is to file a legal flight plan and then divert. From some French airport, going to the UK, you file for Caen or Le T and when approaching them you divert to the UK. ATC is unlikely to ask why but if they do just say the stop was intended for a refuel but you have sufficient fuel.
Once in UK airspace you will have to be “ostensibly VFR” (i.e. OCAS) because there is no practical way to get an IFR clearance (for Class A) while airborne. So it works with the coastal airports but would be messy if you were flying to the Midlands or Scotland.
The diversion method is fairly widely used to get around various stuff like Customs/Immigration PN, or delays for foreign departures due to certain officials not being around, or being around but charging a load of money for a “pretend taxi fare” (a Greek thing). I would speculate that if you use it regularly, eventually somebody will pick you up because the departure airport gets an AFTN message telling them where you actually landed. However you could always say the weather was not suitable for landing as filed, and quite often that is actually true Years ago I have filed for an airport that was totally covered in +++TSRA. Others have also filed for airports which could not be reached with the available fuel but were in schengen (and they diverted halfway along the filed route to a non schengen country).
These are all tools in the flying toolbox but you need to make it look like it was an airborne decision, which cannot be practically questioned. So for example don’t announce your diversion until almost over the border of the departure country.
One guy did this flying from some Greek island to (IIRC) Bulgaria and ATC was yelling at him all the way. His mistake was either an illegal flight plan (which you generally can file in Greece) and/or announcing his diversion very early on. But they didn’t get the F16s up.
At the UK end you probably should send in the GAR as normal, otherwise the police will get a bit agitated.
There is also e.g. this.
have GAR & FPL for LeTouquet-Southend
The FPL won’t work because who will issue the DEP message? Also that FPL will be in the system and will give away that you planned your “workaround” at the outset. Same with the GAR actually but that will not be visible to the country of departure, unless they get really nasty.
Many years ago I knew a guy who had an arrangement with the tower at a certain French airport, to clear Immigration with a touch and go. He doesn’t fly anymore. And the same thing was done by the Shoreham to Pontoise scheduled “airline” which was forced to do a T&G at Le T so the French police were obviously ok with such a stupid stunt (them having screwed the said “airline” by promising Immigration restored at Pontoise from date X, and then breaking their promise, so accelerating the end of the service).
it will have lot of consequences if POB are subject to immigration & aircraft has no VAT
I don’t understand that. The very scenario where this is discussed is avoiding Immigration etc PN. And aircraft VAT is nothing to do with any of this.
can’t help but wonder if this kind of thread also attracts the attention of the authorities… not a good idea methinks.
EuroGA being an open forum, all written and suggested text can and could be used to either directly prosecute the author(s), or have said authorities increase restrictions on travel or border control…
The FPL won’t work
When you do plan to do quick stops at LeTouquet say from Verchocq, don’t you have already filed your FPL/GAR for LeTouquet-UK 1h/4h before your departure? or you land at LFAT, wait 4h before sending GAR and 1h to file FPL?
and could be used to either directly prosecute the author
authorities increase restrictions on travel or border control
Hard to see how much worse they can make it…
EuroGA being an open forum
Every forum is open if you pay the joining fee and read the past posts as those in one “private site” discovered some years ago (I was there and it caused quite a mayhem).
If you are VFR flying in France you don’t need an FPL so filing an FPL to LFAT and going to a UK alternate only works for IFR, doesn’t it?
I file 2 back to back FPL with my stop, even for VFR !
Who flies without VFR FPL in France before diverting to UK without FPL? that would lighten up every radar up to Iceland flying cross broders without FPL may require visual aircraft interception and identification, I am sure paying for JP8 that goes into Typhoons & Rafales more expensive than hotel night from weather or mandatory handling, assuming ATC are “kind enough” to let you go without FPL and do all the handovers for you !
PS: I have gone to UK alternate when I could not land at L2K due to weather, zero issues with LeTouquet tower and Lille Approache, they even suggetsed to open the 2nd FPL and close the 1st FPL, I could have gone to Lille but I did not fancy an extra night there…
