As best as I can remember, “Request IFR climb altitude 4000 feet”. Something pretty much like that. I had mentally prepared for the cloud base being worse than reported plus I had a few seconds to think about the message while they spoke to someone else.
I think it does highlight the potential dangers of “hard IFR”. The work load does increase substantially when something unexpected arises, such as an approach not being available that was expected, and far worse, an AI failure or some such during the flight. It is a whole lot harder than when you are provided with a seamless point to point service and makes one realise that IMC OCAS single pilot is one of the most difficult things that we do.
Joe-fbs wrote:
don’t use it a lot as it is boring for passengers
I think one of the favourite things of most of my passengers is breaking out of clouds on a typical dark day and then fly just above the layer
Sounds like you’re pretty much on top of your game…well done…talking to Cranfield sooner would have been good….but you know that now!
I have an IR because I used to fly professionally and its relatively easy to keep…..but I have to admit that an IR(R) would happily suffice for the vast majority of my flying!
Joe, I can’t claim to be “more experienced” but I do tend to use my IR(R) at some point in every second or third trip of any consequence. It just seems that whenever I want to go to or from SW Scotland, there’s a pesky cloud in the way.
I used to just plan VFR and ask for a pop-up IFR clearance if needed, as you did. Now, after discussing with a local ATC unit, I tend to file IFR and cancel if I don’t need it. By doing that, one is actually, rather than just mentally, prepared for IFR.
It only takes a few minutes to prepare, tweak, validate, save and file an IR(R) flight plan with Autorouter.
If I had a criticism of my IR(R) training, it would be that there was no attempt to teach this use of Autorouter. So here, worth roughly what they cost, are a couple of tips:
1. Autorouter is for folks with a proper IR, but we don’t have to accept any of Autorouter’s proposed routes and levels. For instance, the robot wants to send me to Shobdon tomorrow morning via the Isle of Man. That’s not convenient for a slow airplane which glides like a brick, so I change the route to something like:
N0099F050 DCS/N0099F050 IFR DCT TADAL/N0100F035 DCT WAL/N0100F030 DCT GODPA
and, lo! it validates. :)
2. We can tell Autorouter little white lies. If I want to improve the chance that Wharton Radar will have a copy of my flight plan when I call to wish them the top of the morning, I can put EGNO as an alternate destination – without having the slightest intention of wasting good rubber on their tarmac.
If I can’t find any clouds tomorrow, I can just fly IFR in VMC, or I can cancel IFR at any time. But I probably won’t cancel until I’ve heard the Liverpool ATIS, in case of fog or scud over Wallasey.
Many thanks for posting that, joe-fbs.
The main comment I would make is that, if you are flying in the “UK VFR/IFR style OCAS” way, you need to plan and execute every flight as IFR and then if you can see where you are going that is a bonus. When I was doing my IMC Rating this was the biggest thing I took away from the training (which was mostly haphazard).
So you do the usual thing of checking notams for the destination and alternates and that would generally highlight an INOP ILS etc.
What one must not do is to fly as VFR and then hope to change to IFR when conditions force it on you, because that way to workload is a lot harder and your options might not be so good, for all sorts of other reasons e.g. lack of MSA planning on the route, some equipment not working, etc.
In the UK, ATC is used to people flying on the IMC Rating, and one doesn’t really need to ask for an IFR clearance formally. In Class G they cannot give you a “clearance” anyway, outside an ATZ… In Class G here you can change your flight rules VFR to IFR entirely inside your head. All the time you are not on a full Eurocontrol-filed IFR flight plan (i.e. talking to London Control and being mostly in Class A) you are basically just another VFR flight and the fact that you are in cloud they don’t care. You might have filed an IFR flight plan but it has not been sent to any unit enroute and it doesn’t give you any clearance or entitlement to anything. Hence few people file flight plans on IFR flights in Class G…
So if you are flying say Shoreham to Norwich, VFR, and halfway you find yourself in cloud, you just carry on and when you approach Norwich you just get the ATIS, declare yourself IFR and request the ILS or whatever.
The only gotcha is that they may have booked the ILS for training approaches. It is an annoying habit by UK ATC to book the whole bloody thing for half an hour for each aircraft… But if you you complied with any PNR/PPR requirements, they should still squeeze you in. But it would have been better to call them first and say you may be arriving IFR.
Plan a few alternates and carry all the approach plates for them – in paper (my preference) or on some tablet product for which you have a backup in case it packs up. Do read these before you fly, to make sure you know what to expect.
An IMCR pilot needs to be able to fly any published approach. Anything less will get you one day. That stuff which is posted all over the UK flying sites that the IMC is a “get out of jail card” etc etc is a load of bollocks. It is a full IR, except – valid only in the UK, 1800mm min vis for departure and arrival, and valid only in Classes D-G. You can fly any approach down to the minima on the plate.
An autopilot makes all this 10x easier 
Jacko – I don’t think the Autorouter has the slightest relevance to flying on the IMC Rating. It is for developing Eurocontrol IFR flight plans. In Europe these are mostly high altitude – typically FL080 and above and in Class A. It is true that if you file an “I” flight plan it gets sent to Eurocontrol, and it is true that you can get these to – quite often – validate OCAS, but when you file such and Eurocontrol distributes it to London Control, LC tosses it in the bin because they don’t want “low level traffic”. The ATC system in the UK is watertight-compartmented and LC do only traffic in CAS. In the north, Scottish Control are more flexible…
Thank you everyone for the advice (and the kind words). I especially like Peter’s advice to treat all my A-B flights as IFR. If I had done that, I would have declined my VFR departure from Doncaster (which, for those who don’t know the area, is in Class D) and saved myself and the controller some work with the change.
Equally, on arrival (gin clear but I wanted an ILS for practice) it would also have saved the radio calls when I realised that the (compulsory) handling agent had failed to pass my request for an ILS so the controller assumed VFR join. He instantly changed it to vectors to the ILS but again it would have been easier for both of us if I had booked in IFR although it would still only have worked if the handling agent actually read my email.
Anyway, thanks again. I’ll start using the alternate planning function on SkyDemon and reading plates as well as carrying them. For the avoidance of doubt I had studied the ILS for Cranfield before that flight because the glideslope failure was not NOTAMed.
Joe-fbs
Forgive me for hijacking your thread but there some related questions that I would like to ask.
I have a PPL with IMC. I am aware that with IMC I can fly IR up to/including ‘Class D’.
1. Am I correct to assume that the IMC = IR(R)?
2. My understanding is that with IR(R) I can fly IR/Airways (over the Continent) but must land in VMC. Am I correct?
Then if (1) and (2) are correct:
3. That means that I can T/O into IMC conditions in the UK, continue IFR/Airways over the continent, then, land VMC at destination (say Cannes).
The above sounds too good and simple to be true so must be wrong but this is what I get when I link the dots.
Please comment and put me right.
Thanks
Peter, I think binning IMCR flight plans must be an English thing. Today I filed low level IFR down the coast to EGBS, delayed it half an hour (for breakfast) with Telegram, called Scot Info to activate, and it all worked a treat – as usual. On the way back (after another breakfast ), as far as I can tell the reverse FP was never activated.
Ben, 1. is correct, but you need an EIR for 2.
Then, armed with IR(R)/IMCR and EIR, you can do 3.
