Graham wrote:
But that would effectively mean pilots flying IFR (on a flight plan, not just self-declared IFR) are required to conduct full VFR planning for their route and carry VFR charts, as well as whatever other navigational aids they might need?
Exactly.
Basically you would have to check the IFPS approved route against a VFR chart to make sure you have not planned anything which penetrates a R or D area.
The way I understand the reasoning is:
IFPS knows about ROUTE Availability only for airways, not for anything between two direct points. It will therefore not stop you from flying a DCT if there is something in the way. The German opinion here is now that you are responsible for finding out if a direct you file passes through a restricted or danger or prohibited area.
Imho they do NOT address their own vectoring at this point. If ATC clears you or vectors you OFF your planned route, it is fully their responsibility to see that THEIR planning does not interfere with a restricted area.
My understanding, maybe wrong,
- If you are IFR in controlled airspace under radar vectors, you can fly in D, R, P areas with controller vectors, there is nothing on you to check but feel free to do your own diligence
- If you are IFR outside controlled airspace and off-ATS routes, you are uncontrolled and you have to check yourself
- If you are cleared to published routes (approach, dep, arr, en-routes), you can fly in it’s D, R, P areas
- Anytime you get direct or own navigation you have to check for terrain & airspace yourself
Assuming you have a way to know if you are indeed in controlled airspace or ATS route (sometimes they have notified times & conditions on levels/headings), how the heck you know if ATC forgot to tell you, unless you have a VFR chat or AIP/NOTAMS at hand 
If you are IFR in controlled airspace under radar vectors, you can fly in D, R, P areas with controller vectors, there is nothing on you to check but feel free to do your own diligence
Yes, but the “vectors” bit is irrelevant
If you are IFR outside controlled airspace and off-ATS routes, you are uncontrolled and you have to check yourself
Yes, that is the usual “UK Class G IFR” situation and you are a VFR flight in every relevant respect, with no clearance. The “off ATS routes” is not relevant.
If you are cleared to published routes (approach, dep, arr, en-routes), you can fly in it’s D, R, P areas
Probably variable… in CAS I would agree it is ATC responsibility but the UK does have some procedures in G. Also if a Class G airport with an IAP got a RA pop up on its approach path, I am not sure if ATC there is responsible for telling you about that. They normally would, of course, but also their responsibility is only within their ATZ.
Anytime you get direct or own navigation you have to check for terrain & airspace yourself
Not if in CAS; one often gets “own nav to…” on an IFR flight in Europe, although the “own nav” is probably just a UK phrase; in e.g. France they say something else (which is also not “cleared to”).
But we are talking practically here. If you busted, then a good lawyer (who actually flies IFR) would have lots to say about the phraseology… There is so much unclear that one would not know where to start. For example the French “radar contact” (spoken after you told the guy your proposed route) is totally ambiguous; at one level it obviously is a clearance (and that is how VFR in France basically works) but formally it isn’t so they could bust you if they wanted to.
The bottom line is that a good lawyer starts at 5k/day so this stuff never gets tested in court.
IFPS knows about ROUTE Availability only for airways, not for anything between two direct points. It will therefore not stop you from flying a DCT if there is something in the way.
Not quite so… IFPS is perfectly capable of enforcing a MAX DCT of 10nm or whatever. It is up to the country to deliver to IFPS the set of rules they want to see enforced on validation.
The German opinion here is now that you are responsible for finding out if a direct you file passes through a restricted or danger or prohibited area.
In CAS, I think that is BS 
It flies in the face of how IFR works everywhere. On a typical IFR flight you are constantly asking for DCTs…
This thing smells badly. I reckon somebody in the system screwed up (forgot to write the day’s notams on the board) and they are trying to nail the pilot for it.
What airspace class was this in?
Imho they do NOT address their own vectoring at this point. If ATC clears you or vectors you OFF your planned route, it is fully their responsibility to see that THEIR planning does not interfere with a restricted area.
For sure. In addition, if being vectored, they are responsible for your obstacle clearance.
RobertL18C wrote:
Am aware of one pilot getting a licence suspension when cleared direct by Cardiff and the pilot flew into Bristol CAS.
What that pilot continuously in CAS from the point (s)he got the clearance up to entering Bristol airspace?
Mooney_Driver wrote:
IFPS knows about ROUTE Availability only for airways, not for anything between two direct points.
IFPS certainly knows about directs. In many cases it is not possible to fly between two airports only on established routes, so it must.
Airborne_Again wrote:
What that pilot continuously in CAS from the point (s)he got the clearance up to entering Bristol airspace?
I don’t think it matters…. although they abut so it is possible but it doesn’t change the situation. If Cardiff clear you into their CAS then that is only valid in their CAS – the fact that your route might ‘obviously’ take you out of their CAS to the east in a manner that makes entering Bristol’s CAS a practical requirement is irrelevant. Cardiff may coordinate with Bristol proactively and get you onward clearance, with or without prompting, but they don’t have to and if they don’t say they’ve done it then you need to manage the situation yourself – either by calling Bristol, asking Cardiff to sort it, or turning back. If you charge onwards without it being sorted, you’ll infringe.
Of course re-reading what @RobertL18C wrote, it might be interpreted as not necessarily meaning a CAS to CAS incident. It might mean they were inbound to Cardiff and Cardiff cleared them to enter Cardiff’s CAS, but the unfortunate pilot passed through Bristol’s CAS to get there – something he wasn’t cleared to do. I think this is still an infringement, whether he entered from Class G or Class A, because the clearance was from Cardiff and only to enter their CAS.
I just don’t take any chances on what I’m cleared to do and if there’s the slightest doubt then check. For instance, being vectored from the north for the 27 ILS at Guernsey usually takes you through the Sark restricted area. Thus when I’m given “turn right heading 240 degrees cleared ILS runway 27 approach” I always tag “confirm cleared to enter R095?” onto my acknowledgement.
Graham wrote:
If Cardiff clear you into their CAS then that is only valid in their CAS – the fact that your route might ‘obviously’ take you out of their CAS to the east in a manner that makes entering Bristol’s CAS a practical requirement is irrelevant.
Nothing surprises me about the UK ATC system anymore, but what you say is not true according to international standards. A clearance is valid to its clearance limit. Period. The pilot is not required to understand the sectorisation applied by ATC. If the clearance will take you through airspace controlled by someone else then ATC must coordinate.
Relying on IFPS to keep you legal is, unfortunately, wrong.
It is like relying on the police to keep you from breaking and entering. Yes, they will stop you from breaking and entering if they are around, but if they aren’t and you get caught you can’t say “but the police didn’t stop me”.
Let’s go back to basics and assume IFPS does not exist.
An IFR Pilot is expected to plan the flight plan along ATS routes within the altitudes of these routes. Some of the routes are temporary, and the pilot is expected to file it only of he/she thinks they will fly that route when it is open. The routes are simple, the routes with restrictions are clearly marked as such, and the restrictions are simple (e.g., “only available on weekends, and on workdays before 08:00 and after 17:00”). These routes are guaranteed to keep you in CAS and out of danger areas as well as terrain-safe, so you can rely on them.
Also, everyone who operates in this system who uses a DCT does understand that they are completely on their own. Fortunately, the IFR charts contain restricted areas and danger areas and CAS boundaries where relevant, so it is easy to stay legal; terrain safety may be a bit harder (anyone know by heart the definition of MORA, and where it applies?).
This is, BTW, the situation in most of the world, and in the USA.
In Europe, Eurocontrol and the national ATS providers created more and more rules. Rules that have nothing to do with legality of the airspace or terrain, but with capacity and flow management. For example “You must cross waypoint X at FL100 or below if intending to land at airport X on Tuesdays and Wednesdays”. It currently has well over 500 pages. Of course this was widely ignored, so IFPS enforces these rules.
This created a bit of a tug of war between IFPS and the users. Initially, you could circumvent airways rules by filing DCT between waypoints of the airway. IFPS then checked for that. You could zig-zag between two airways using DCTs. So they reduced DCT limits. You could have random climbs and descents to go around level restrictions at waypoints. So they started checking climb and descent rates vs aircraft type. And so on and so on.
But the rules are the same – if you don’t file standard airways, YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.
At some point, because IFPS has become the "enforcer of rules’, people started to expect that IFPS is the enforcer of all rules, which it isn’t. Even worse – it mostly enforces the rules that are there for the benefit of ATC (keep the traffic flowing the way they want), and does NOT enforce all rules that the pilots need to obey (including not flying into terrain).
Peter wrote:
The only questionable thing is in the post by @malibuflyer about the “cleared to destination” bit, which “everybody” knows is an old IFR ritual and has no real meaning. But that clearance is still issued…
I fully agree to Airborne in this point. It is a very UK view that this clearance has no real meaning. It is an ICAO conforming rout clearance that has a clearance limit “destination” and a cleared route “as in flight plan”. If at some point during the flight you enter an airspace where the controlling ATC doesn’t want to have you, it is ATC’s fault (and they would have to revoke your clearance).
Not even in theory there is a realistic way for pilots to check the responsibility of the ATC unit you are talking to to identify that a clearance they give you is not valid up to the clearance limit but only to the border of their area of responsibility…
Peter wrote:
Is it possible in Germany to be in CAS, IFR, and not be under radar ATC control? @caba may know.
No, it’s not – but I would regard this question as irrelevant because a clearance stays a clearance…
Cobalt wrote:
Relying on IFPS to keep you legal is, unfortunately, wrong.
Absolutely. To be more precise: IFPS has very little to nothing to do with legal or not! IFPS does not issue clearances. The only statement you get from IFPS when they accept your flight plan is “we do not see any obvious reason why this flight should be impossible at the time you intend to fly”. It doesn’t you entitle to anything.
A completely different thing is the clearance you get from ATC. This should be binding! In that sense the IFPS system is nothing more than a (more or less) convenient way to ask for a specific clearance.
Cobalt wrote:
if you don’t file standard airways, YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.
Don’t agree to that. Might be, that ATC will not clear you as planned because they say you should not fly there – but in my opinion it’s not the role of the pilot to double check airspaces in any direct you get.
Just imagine Frankfurt or Heathrow departure frequency if every pilot that received a DCT has to ask back
“please confirm that includes clearance to enter airspace D sector x, Airspace C sector y, airspace C sector z and – uh – wait – there seems to be this glider area south east of the field – uh – need to check if this direct touches it – please wait until my iPad boots up – ah, don’t know – please confirmed I’m cleared to cross it anyways if I touch it – ….”
Airborne_Again wrote:
Nothing surprises me about the UK ATC system anymore, but what you say is not true according to international standards. A clearance is valid to its clearance limit. Period. The pilot is not required to understand the sectorisation applied by ATC. If the clearance will take you through airspace controlled by someone else then ATC must coordinate.
Indeed, but here (I guess again something non-standard) one does not always get a clearance limit defined. The only time I can recall being given a clearance limit is crossing the Gatwick CTR, where one is typically told “clearance limit is the north terminal” or wherever, because at that point you will likely orbit for a moment and then they hand you over to Tower for crossing the runway.
The typically phraseology is “G-CD cleared to enter controlled airspace, [flight rules], [routing], [level]”. For most practical purposes (i.e. a transit) that means in one side and out the other, but one is certainly not cleared into any other piece of airspace that may adjoin it on the side you intend to leave.
Unless in Class A (and the Cardiff/Bristol zones are Class D) a pilot in the UK is in fact required to understand the sectorisation, if they wish to transit the airspace. UK Class D operates as a series of private fiefdoms and the fact that two or more fiefdoms may adjoin each other does not entitle a pilot to treat them as one in terms of getting a clearance to enter.
Malibuflyer wrote:
I fully agree to Airborne in this point. It is a very UK view that this clearance has no real meaning. It is an ICAO conforming rout clearance that has a clearance limit “destination” and a cleared route “as in flight plan”. If at some point during the flight you enter an airspace where the controlling ATC doesn’t want to have you, it is ATC’s fault (and they would have to revoke your clearance).
Fully agree. If you are cleared to destination on the filed route then you may fly it unless it is revoked. However, I would not like to try testing it in the UK, and in any case I think the terminology is no longer used in the UK – probably to avoid precisely this problem. The potential problem arises on an international flight into the UK where the first controller gives you such a clearance. ATC might quibble (I imagine) about what ‘revokes’ a clearance. I doubt it would stand up to any practical scrutiny, but in theory someone might make a case that when you get the first DCT to some point not on your route, or even some out-of-sequence DCT (a shortcut) that effectively revoked your original clearance because at that point you are no longer following the filed plan exactly.
The root of it all is a fragmented system operated as a series of private fiefdoms.
