Eurocontrol CTOT / airport slot assignments for light GA and how to get around them

Half way en route they got stuck between layers approaching the front and demanded an IFR clearance …

How do you know they are stuck between layers? or is that what the pilot said?

I ask for IFR startup inside Echo or IFR join from Golf all year along, I never “got stuck”, it’s always CAVOK ahead for 100nm if that is what ATC needs to give me airspace access under IFR…

Expecting a “magic VMC tunnel” when crossing a winter warm front with low ceilings and high tops or expecting “no ice” when passing a Cu at -5 rightfully poses some questions if the pilot has enough knowledge on weather to safely operate an airplane

If the pilot says it’s VMC there and he is flying VFR, who has the authority to say no?

It will be good to get the actual court case? I also heard claims of ULM pilots (again not IR rated or equipped) being fined for flying trough frontal clouds in Golf, I can’t see how that is even possible “technically”? and no one has come up with evidences of a court case?

If asking for clearance = fine then flying without clearance = solution

At least in one case they actually paid fines. It was a flight from somewhere near Hamburg to Berlin.

Lets not emphazise this case too much. It was long ago and under very special circumstances. It was the last days of Berlin Tempfelhof airfield which fell into a time with bad weather. It was a highly political subject back then, the pilots had been fighting with authorities openly about slots before the flight etc… I was even standing at the airport fence when the last official plane left into the night later on and that was also an obvious illegal VFR into IMC flight if my memory is right. Some plane was even stranded at the airport after closure and another fight about a special departure permit started which was eventually granted while politicians said the plane should be trucked out.

Ok that was for aerodrome weather runway & circuit? I am really puzzled that someone who is not in the cockpit can guess en-route weather, I am not aware of anyone with superior knowledge who can tell if it’s IMC/VMC at given time, position & altitude

If it’s the case, why most pilots need ADL, weather radars and stormscopes?

Ibra wrote:

Ok that was for aerodrome weather runway & circuit?

Enroute weather and as far as I can remember all the way to the runway but wide spread and well predicted. But really this was a special case. Pilots requested IFR slots beyond capacity. Asking again and again still no slot, fly VFR, ask enroute for IFR pickup and land IFR. So if the weather seemed ok for VFR to those pilots why did they insist so much on an IFR right before so they did deliver the evidence more or less themselves. Also they could have diverted to any other IFR airfield and nobody would have cared but they pressed on to Berlin Tempelhof. Then they got somehow prosecuted for improper flight planning. This is a bit like flying over Paris, declaring an emergency and then landing in some public space because you always wanted to do this and even posted online many times you want to land there… Nobody will prosecute you on a normal flight if the weather is worse than anticipated and you need help.

Peter wrote:

That is legal BS. They had a very poor defence lawyer, and/or it was a kangaroo court

With wx, there are no “facts” in advance.

Sorry, but that is legal evasion BS. Of course there are facts that you can know 1-2 hrs in advance and sometimes even a day in advance.

Yes, even in the mid of summer in southern Italy with stable high pressure and cloud free sky for the last week and another week of cloud free forecast you could argue “yes, but it is still not a fact that tomorrow 2pm we do not have less than minus 10 deg OAT and there is no way to actually know before it is tomorrow at 2pm and you are outside with a thermometer”

It is actually good that we have such “kangaroo courts” in Germany that do not listen to such BS as “VMC is an irrelevant concept and I never can be fined for VFR in IMC because even if I see this Cu I can not know for sure that it is actually IMC within it and when I realize I can not avoid.”

Courts in Germany have broad experience with these kind of “not even nice tries” because in road traffic we have some “speed restrictions when wet” and there are dozens of geniuses each year that try the “yes, it has been raining cats and dogs for hours and generally the road has been quite wet but you still can not absolutely prove that exactly the tracks I was following have been bone dry exactly at the time I used them…” defense

Malibuflyer; I don’t think you have read the posts by Sebastian, above.

What this thread illustrates above all is one of the differences across Europe, when it comes to strict punishment, and the evidence needed As is often stated, it is just as well that pilots are not in charge of punishing other pilots.

And again it shows that forum posts of “court cases” are at best “partial information”.

It is actually good that we have such “kangaroo courts” in Germany that do not listen to such BS as “VMC is an irrelevant concept and I never can be fined for VFR in IMC because even if I see this Cu I can not know for sure that it is actually IMC within it and when I realize I can not avoid.”

AFAIK, asking for VFR crossing or VFR landing from CTA/TMA is never an issue if the pilot has (his) required visbility and (his) ground in-sight, it’s only inside CTR, where SVFR applies and that is ATC at discretion !

There are no VFR/VMC definitions that require ATC in tower to have pilot in-sight? it’s not even the case in controlled airfields where the aerodrome controller is not instrument rated (has an ATC ADV visual rating but not ATC ADI instrument rating), he has to rely on PIC reporting his position in the circuit, he only need to see the runway & the taxiway !!

Pilots requested IFR slots beyond capacity. Asking again and again still no slot, fly VFR, ask enroute for IFR pickup and land IFR. So if the weather seemed ok for VFR to those pilots why did they insist so much on an IFR right before so they did deliver the evidence more or less themselves.

Thanks, I see that makes way more sense !

99% more sense than ‘fined because of IMC’

I am creating a little page of useful contacts for my kneeboard, does anyone know a list or of the various “Current” numbers for the various countries across Europe to get Slots?
Like the German AIS-C? https://secais.dfs.de/pilotservice/home.jsp

Does Spain have one? I am sure I read somewhere that it does? Presumably it’s all via handlers in other coordinated airports?

I use my kneeboard CDB from training for all my flight(s) still as a backup, and pre-flight stuff and relevant contacts is there. I can, but always forget that my Bose Proflight 2 is Bluetooth so can phone whilst in the aircraft.

boscomantico wrote:

Don’t think that is very useful. Light IFR GA very rarely flies to fully coordinated airports. And certainly, one doesn’t need it on the kneeboard, i.e. in flight.

Also, Germany may well be an exception, as I don’t think the AIS/ARO of any other country does this “service” for pilots. In these countries, you can forget about calling someone to get a slot. Need to send a request in the SCR format.

Contact details of the French COHOR are here: https://www.cohor.org/en/contact/