FIR Handover - France or Belgium to London Info

Found it, from 1991, the ruling says it’s 100% legal under FAA rules but it’s the dangerous & careless act under 91.13 that prohibit flying in IMC in Golf without talking to ATC on departure

Obviously this was in aerodrome vicinity straight into Echo at 700ft agl under US definition of VMC, so opens a whole cans of worms than going through clouds while in cruise, the report does not conclude if there was an “Echo airspace bust” under IFR with 1200 on transponder, the pilot claimed he was VFR/VMC when entering Echo but was IFR/IMC at the surface…also it’s interesting that US ATC don’t give IFR depart & join clearance if the arrival aerodrome is bellow it’s minima (they do enforce destination planning minima and startup ban for Part91)

https://www.ntsb.gov/legal/alj/OnODocuments/Aviation/3935.PDF

I´ve just returned from that quick trip over to England. It was a successful mission and a good experience.
The flight to East Midlands was straightforward, but until reaching VELAG on the STAR I did not cross any of the fixes on my Eurocontrol validated route, RUDUS/N0135F080 IFR TUTOV IBESA PELIX HTB OZ KERKY/N0135F100 OO MADUX KONAN RINTI DVR DET N57 WELIN HEMEL1E. For the first hour I received a couple of directs to familiar points, later on I was vectored clear of the Brussels departure flow. Brussels sent us over to London while still over Belgium and crossed the Channel from KOK to DVR, which gave us (my daughter was with me) about four minutes out of gliding range to the shore. London vectored us around the LAM, we could see some heavy metal too, and then it was on to EGNX for a visual approach after passing through some rain showers.

The way back went pretty much as planned, and thanks again Ibra for this:

sorry, I was thinking you are talking inbound UK outbound it’s easy you fly at 2300ft untill DET, Thames radar gets you a climb to 4kft and LTC get you a climb to FL100 at DVR, you can talk to Heathrow Radar or Thames Radar (see city airport AIP and just ask them for join at DET VOR), the other way is to ask London Info FIS but I am afraid you will be in Belgium by the time they get you a clearance from ATC…

I mentioned to EGNX TWR that we would fly IFR outside controlled airspace, but they said the flight plan would have to be cancelled to do this. Well, I just went on the SID to see whether the wind was really that bad. Passing 6000ft it had picked up to about 45kts right on our nose, so I requested descend below controlled airspace and continued happily at about 2000ft with basic service and London Information. The alternative route around the London airspace mess was sent to the Perspective and the autopilot did its thing. The rest went exactly as Ibra says: Heathrow Radar step climbed us back into the system, Channel crossing at FL90, then on into Belgium. The only glitch was that we were intitially sent to Lille Approach, but they coordinated a nice direct with Brussels control and sent us over.

All in all not too difficult, also thanks to the wealth of information I´ve found on this forum over the years.

Glad all worked fine, curious if LTC or Lille/Brussels did assign you back the same transponder code you had on SID? sometimes they do sometimes they don’t…London Info gets you 1177while Heathrow-Thames give 703x-704x

I went from my original code to 1177 London Information, to 7000 for the switch to Thames. Thames gave me a code and sent me to Heathrow, who eventually assigned me the original IFR code.

The only thing that bothered me a little bit was part of the phraseology. You don´t hear “pass your message” very often in Germany, but at least I understood what it meant. But when descending below controlled airspace the controller gave some Q-code probably meaning something like “approved to leave frequency”. I don´t know any Q-codes whatsoever other than for the barometric pressure or bearings, and I doubt many non-UK-pilots do. Also “squawk conspicuity code” made me scratch my head enough to make me ask if he meant 7000.

Still, it was a good experience flying in England, and I hope to do it again soon.

QSY probably. A very UK thing.

That was “QSY en-route” while “Squawk Con-Security” means 2000 for IFR OCAS but 7000 will do as well (after all it’s you who decide in your head )

I guess as you filed FL100 and flying internationally to a destination in airspace, you tend to stay on original squawk and original FPL can get retrieved once clear of London

Maybe it’s a bit different within UK: the original FPL gets toasted after the aircraft has left airspace to destination outside controlled airspace, if you want to go back to airspace again (say to fly to alternate due to weather), they tend to assign a new squawk…

IFPS/Eurocontrol will reject DIV-ARR messages but NATS FPS seems to like them I also heard once the tower saying on radio “we don’t close flight plans in this country, even IFR ones” !

That is what I was told as well, if you retain the sqwak, NATS system automatically sends “arrived message” to close the flight plan in UK FPS & IFPS as you disappear from radar near the destination (assumes you landed not crashed), this happens as long as you don’t execute missed in a specific volume & time (say TnG at Stapleford and pop-up again with the same TXP code)

This is different from getting kicked outside controlled airspace way before reaching your OCAS destination on 7000/2000/xxxx, the FPL will get toasted in the UK FPS system with “diverted & arrived” and it won’t get closed in IFPS: you usually see it as open in AutoRouter while your are drinking pints in the clubhouse during the evening, unless you close it yourself or it times out…

Here’s a practical question relevant to avoiding rejection by London Control. Scenario is leaving Calais for DVR and onward northwest, and assuming that the SID takes me to the boundary at RINTI. This is not very far, in the region of 12 – 15 nm track miles so I am likely to arrive at RINTI below Class A at FL065. The discussion above suggests I will be told to contact London Information and thereafter be in danger of being told a clearance into CAS is not available. Any suggestions to avoid this scenario?

If you file DVR SID from Calais or LYD SID from L2K with FL80 and get clearance to it on ground, your next frequency is guaranteed to be London Control (at least if you lost comms or you delay frequency change), my observation this handover was consistent, leaving airspace & re-rentry is not an issue if you are on published departure and you stick to it

When you call TWR/AFIS in L2K/Calais (or phone call Lille for clearance) you get climb 3kft initially then make sure you are clear that you want +FL80 afterward while you are on the ground…

PS: you can also ignore English Channel Danger Area on those published departure route, strictly speaking you should avoid when in Golf but you can do what you wish as long as you comply with climb gradient and stick to the published departure route (same way how you can bust Prohibited area of EDF power station north of Calais while flying the published approach on IFR clearance)