You won‘t find it, and it can be changed tactically too.
How/where do you find the airport’s taxi time used by the Eurocontrol computer for this rule?
If you file through Autorouter you can see the taxi time in the IFPS Flightplan
Won’t ATC tell you if you ask them? It is up to them to make sure you comply with any CTOT etc. And if they let you get airborne, you are all good 
Just make sure you don’t get this because the airport police, especially in some countries, may have a “different idea” of when you can get moving…
Peter wrote:
Won’t ATC tell you if you ask them? It is up to them to make sure you comply with any CTOT etc. And if they let you get airborne, you are all good
If the airport is controlled they probably will but we often get slots at uncontrolled airfield. The incident which made me post was at Laeso / EKLS. It is not only uncontrolled but there is really nobody. But I was afraid to get into trouble with ATC in case we just take off and ask for IFR pickup. Later a nice lady from AIS even did call us on the phone to inform us about the slot just in case we did not get the SMS.
Another strategy at uncontrolled airfields is to just switch off the phone one hour before departure to “concentrate on the flight” ;-)
Peter wrote:
Won’t ATC tell you if you ask them? It is up to them to make sure you comply with any CTOT etcI think the question was related to the Eurocontrol FAQ describing how to tactically delay an FPL to “freeze” a slot. Therefore it seems you need to know the sepcified taxi time (which, IIRC, is not a fixed value per airpot, but varies with time of day, traffic levels, Wx…).
tschnell wrote:
Local ATC probably does not even know about it
It is my understanding that taxi times can be changed either by the Flow Controller or by the Tower Controller. The TWR controller will normally know the taxi time, he can see it in the Eurocontrol’s flight portal.
Sebastian_G wrote:
Another strategy at uncontrolled airfields is to just switch off the phone one hour before departure to “concentrate on the flight” ;-)Just the other day I overheard a conversation on the radio between a guy departing from an uncontrolled airport on an Z-Plan to EDDH and ATC. Upon asking for the IFR pickup in the air, the controller informed him that a slot had been assigend for 30 minutes later and asked whether the pilot wasn’t aware of that. The pilot went on to say that he didn’t know what this was all about and that he had dutifully arranged for a slot in EDDH. The controller explained to him that an enroute slot has nothing to do with an arrival slot at a coordinated airport, but clearly the pilot didn’t understand a word…
Yesterday I flew from Brac to Cannes. My departure was delayed by 35 mins with a CTOT. Brac tower was unmanned yesterday so could have just taken off, but the risk would have been Split radar not allowing me into controlled airspace so I dutifully wait until the CTOT and had no issues nor any mention of the CTOT. the procedure at Brac was to call split on the radio just prior to take off. They gave me my clearance and squark.
If you get a CTOT while departing from a “farm strip” then obviously nobody can do anything about it. You just might not get a clearance into CAS, but then again ATC might not know, and once you are flying under ATC control (in CAS) it is a fait accompli…
I often wondered about this… for example going EGKA-EDNY, the departure is Class G and while EGKA normally has ATC who will prevent you departing early, but you could say you are going to ignore the flight plan (but aren’t cancelling it) and just going to fly locally, and proceed in Class G for about 100nm towards EDNY (perfectly possible) and then call up London Info, or even London Control directly, for the IFR clearance (the “airways join” in UK speak). I doubt ATC would go along with that without cancelling your FP first though, but in principle it should work because there is no tight control on where you are joining CAS, relative to where you departed.
The whole CTOT business is usually a computer artefact; it is the result of a sector being overloaded for the ATC manpower provision, but there is no actual conflict because most of the other traffic will be at say FL300. The classic case of this has been in the DVR region (south east UK) where most traffic will still be at FL200, with piston GA at ~FL100.
Just the other day I overheard a conversation on the radio between a guy departing from an uncontrolled airport on an Z-Plan to EDDH and ATC. Upon asking for the IFR pickup in the air, the controller informed him that a slot had been assigend for 30 minutes later and asked whether the pilot wasn’t aware of that. The pilot went on to say that he didn’t know what this was all about and that he had dutifully arranged for a slot in EDDH. The controller explained to him that an enroute slot has nothing to do with an arrival slot at a coordinated airport, but clearly the pilot didn’t understand a word…
After some further discussions and apparently some phonecalls made by the controller, the pilot recevied his clearance right away, though.
I think this was me. I was departing on Z-Plan form EDDS (controlled airport) to EDDH to shorten the way, because I had very good VFR conditions in the departure aera. I did know exactly what the controller meant, but first I had a phone call with AIS a few minutes before departure and they confirmed the flight as planned and second, the SMS with the CTOT for the enroute ir part arrived but after I switched of the phone before starting the engine, so I got it after landing. Additionally the tower at Stuttgart didn‘t say a word so I think the message came delayed because otherwise the guys there would have known about it. Finally I offerd to continue vfr, because ifr was only filed due ouf more comfort for the flight at higher altitudes, and then the controller offered to ask the other sector if they would accept me and they did.
So it was very much hassle for nothing.
The worst about it in general in my opinion is, that the call and the discussion is distracting the pilots attention in the vfr part. Maybe the better solution for such a flight will be in future to depart vfr and according to EASA rules file a prepared ir flightplan in flight. As far as I know, they have to accept it. Has anybody tried it this way?
