I find this amazing because in the UK, and some other places, you can file IFR largely OCAS, and/or at a level at which there is no “Eurocontrol IFR” ATC service, but the IFR flight plan should assist in carrying out an IFR arrival especially if the conditions are IMC.
If filing via a 3rd party service (SD uses EuroFPL for FP filing; it was actually me who introduced Tim Dawson to Travis Holland of EuroFPL) then there is no difference between filing a user-supplied VFR route and a user-supplied IFR route. The IFR one may get a NAK (not validating) but that’s the user’s problem.
For example a flight like EGKA GWC SAM TIVER LND EGHE (Shoreham to Scilly Isles) at 4000ft would make sense to file IFR even though LTCC (London Control) will toss it in the bin immediately (because it is mostly OCAS) if expecting to fly an IAP at EGHE.
Would any ATC (not London Info) receive this binned FPL ?
Or just file VFR to give your details and report IFR on radio.
The IAP & MAP are not part of any FPL only SID/ATS/STAR+IAF are attached to your FPL, basically departures, arrivals, airways need IFR FPL in the system but approach & missed support an ad-hoc clearances but it’s up to your destination airport approach controller, of course ATC may have other reasons to not give you IAP if inbound as VFR but it’s not lack of IFR FPL, sector coordination or radar separation, you won’t need any of that if no other traffic is around
In theory, you can get IFR clearance to IAP without “filed FPL in the system” but yes surely having an FPL does entitle you to IAP in few places where flying IAP falls under “VIP treatment guarded by PPR”
It’s not an issue in places where remote approach controllers manages few IAFs around their sector without lot of emotional attachement to one airport, they just get you a short FPL plus clearance to fly IAP if no other aircraft is down that road already 
I’m not really surprised. There are entirely different protocols for submitting IFR flight plans. In principle, you could send an AFTN message to the IFPS, but then you have to be prepared to handle any responses from the IFPS. For VFR flight plans there is no such protocol. AFAIK, Autorouter doesn’t even use AFTN but a separate B2B interface to the IFPS.
Would any ATC (not London Info) receive this binned FPL ?
In the UK (SD’s primary market) an IFR FP binned by LTCC will go to dep and dest, and that’s it.
In theory, you can get IFR clearance to IAP without “filed FPL in the system” but yes surely having an FPL does entitle you to IAP in few places where flying IAP falls under “VIP treatment guarded by PPR”
Yes; that’s about it. You can “just turn up” but a FP is better in today’s climate.
There are entirely different protocols for submitting IFR flight plans. In principle, you could send an AFTN message to the IFPS, but then you have to be prepared to handle any responses from the IFPS.
Same for VFR. Any unit enroute could send back a message. I’ve had that, had a routing refused (years ago). Any FP filing service has to implement a “back channel”.
AFAIK, Autorouter doesn’t even use AFTN but a separate B2B interface to the IFPS.
It does IFPS for “I” FPs but AFTN+IFPS for Z and Y ones, and AFTN for V ones. It used the same AFTN gateway (KBLIHAEX) as everybody else uses. Well, that’s that it did when I was involved with it.
SD could offer non-autorouted IFR FP filing via the AFTN. It is a policy decision, simply.
I just use EuroFPL.eu for this sort of thing 
Peter wrote:
SD could offer non-autorouted IFR FP filing via the AFTN. It is a policy decision, simply.I just use EuroFPL.eu for this sort of thing
Apparently(allegedly?) this feature was not implemented for reasons mentioned by Airborne_Again – more hassle, plus many people expect all other things to be validated, like Autorouter does.
You can’t even submit an FP when you select Mixed flight rules, only VFR.
plus many people expect all other things to be validated
Well, there are still pilots out there who think a FP does the whole enroute check for notams, and PPR But that’s no different for V, or Z Y I…
So whatever hassle a FP filing service gets is no different. And I’d say much less likely to get hassle from those filing “I” because they should at least know something about “the system” by the time they get an IMCR or IR.
Peter wrote:
So whatever hassle a FP filing service gets is no different. And I’d say much less likely to get hassle from those filing “I” because they should at least know something about “the system” by the time they get an IMCR or IR.
You could only hope! :)
I actually think it’s a real weakness in both the IMCr / IR(R) and the ‘full’ IR training that there is not enough ‘real world’ teaching in it. Far too much time is spent perfecting NDB holds or trying to fly a DME arc to tighter tolerances than required, and not enough time spent on how to actually plan and fly and IFR flight from A to B. There is some excuse for this for the IR(R) but that’s a separate matter.
I would think that the people making the biggest hash of flight plans are those with a fresh instrument qualification who have been taught how to pass a test and don’t actually know very much about the infrastructure and workings of the system in reality.
Pirho wrote:
I actually think it’s a real weakness in both the IMCr / IR(R) and the ‘full’ IR training that there is not enough ‘real world’ teaching in it. Far too much time is spent perfecting NDB holds or trying to fly a DME arc to tighter tolerances than required, and not enough time spent on how to actually plan and fly and IFR flight from A to B. There is some excuse for this for the IR(R) but that’s a separate matter.I would think that the people making the biggest hash of flight plans are those with a fresh instrument qualification who have been taught how to pass a test and don’t actually know very much about the infrastructure and workings of the system in reality.
Well that is true, but let’s not make a big thing of it, the issue is “UK specific”, elsewhere there is no need for the pilot to understand how “FPL/ATC system works”, there no need to debug downstream beyond the backend of API or GUI
You can fly Jerez to SanSebastian with 80% on direct clearance on VFR FPL filed on SkyDemon
The only cases where one may have to “understand a bit more on FPL/ATC” in Europe is when flying IFR on EIR with no SID/STAR/IAP, or flying IFR from VFR only airports, or IFR with no ATC/AFIS especially in IMC or marginal VMC (failure to understand how these things work usually result in IFR GA pilots, who are well capable of cloud flying, to prefer an increase in VMC cloud separation while busting their MSA terrain separation, both are illegal but one is more safer, maybe as they are afraid to piss ATC? or the extra guilt to get ashamed by pilots in GA forums? then hope ATC can sort them out, where not even God will help someone when he is bellow his MSA, if pilot needs traffic or cloud separation they can ask ATC for help, if you don’t they can keep the info for themselves, however, terrain separation is a must and require cheap technology like altimeter & paper/moving map )
In terms of training, you can come across IMCr instructors who never filed an FPL and never flew in CAS (the Golf airspace PA28 & NDB fan ), then you come across IRI who never flew OCAS in IMC or SEP in IMC (the Alpha airspace A320 & ATC fan ), if one wants to learn how to fly a SEP in IFR/IMC in GA airfields with Airways they better find an IRI who flies Bizjets, PC12s, KingAirs for a living, the kind who flies Biggin Hill to Fairoaks with 500ft cloud-base direct IFR OCAS to pick someone & fuel before taking take it to Switzerland on airways IFR, they seem to know more how things work, starting with filing FPL in SkyDemon & EuroFPL…
