Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

VFR into IMC with an IR

As the OP describes so well, inadvertent IMC (with IR rated or not pilot) is an emergency. The only rule which remains is staying alive.

Inadvertent IMC bellow MSA in cruise: it’s an emergency, life expectancy is 5min max !!

Inadvertent IMC above MSA with IR rated pilot & IFR aircraft? “staying alive” or “emergency”? you gotta be kidding, life expectancy is about fuel endurance…

  • The SOP for IR rated/equipped pilots when entering inadvertent IMC is to bite the bullet and climb to cruise above their safe altitude (on autopilot or hand flying wing level on heading) and latter ask for ATS join or separation, I am not sure since when this has changed?
  • The SOP for PPL pilot or ULM aircraft, is to turn 180deg VFR to find VMC…
Last Edited by Ibra at 13 Jan 17:56
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Ibra wrote:

I am not sure since when this has changed?

Not really changed, but in many countries we have a “hard wall” between IFR and VFR.

  • The German DFS prosecuted pilots for inadequate pre-flight planning after asking for an IFR clearance after unable to maintain VMC.
  • “pop-up” ATC clearances into Class A are next to impossible in the UK, making this unfeasible if controlled airspace is involved
  • in many countries, IFR frequencies are separate and you need to ask / then change frequency to get one.

In other counties, it could not be easier, especially if you are typically on the frequency that can give you the clearance, e.g., Norway and Sweden, IIRC.

While it is silly and every pilot should simply take the safest option, these factors can lead to a desire to sort it out on one’s own… especially where the local ATC provider (Germany) or the local CAA (UK) are prosecution and sanction-happy. Combined with high workload when scud-running which does also not help good decision making.

Biggin Hill

While it is silly and every pilot should simply take the safest option, these factors can lead to a desire to sort it out on one’s own… especially where the local ATC provider (Germany) or the local CAA (UK) are prosecution and sanction-happy

As I mentioned earlier, sort it out on one’s own is not possible when flying VFR in marginal weather in places where IFR cruise MSA sits inside busy airspace, if the 180 turn was not initiated early one will be in busting airspace in the climb or precautionary landing in the field…other than that the legal & safe option is very obvious, these things also happens when you fly “IFR fully in the system” on Z/Y FPL because of some silly filing rules, you simply can’t control the transition unless it’s 10nm cross-country or CAVOK in whole country plus in few countries: ATC will “unlawfully cancel” (only PIC is entitled to cancel)

CAA & LBA have a long tradition of encouraging VFR scud run even for IR rated/equipped pilots instead of the horror of having easy IFR/VFR transitions into ANSP networks NATS/DFS, this thinking is now gone by EASA SERA/NCO rules which are well informed on risks from traffic vs terrain, however, ATS restrictions will likely stay around and fictitious CAS/OCAS cliff and VFR/IFR wall is here to stay, both are way softer than terrain: airspace has smooth shapes with less sharp edges than ground surface and obstacles, if an IR PIC has VFR/IFR wall in his head then it’s a different problem

Last Edited by Ibra at 13 Jan 18:00
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

In addition to some good replies already:

It is important to always be terrain-aware.

You can fly at night on a plain PPL, legally, and fly into a hill etc. It’s been done many times

These days, with a decent satnav app, getting terrain warnings is very easy. It can be tricky to feed them into a headset (which is necessary) but it can be done.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

It seems to me, to a classic be ‘human factors’ issue.
The OP stated he was in a familiar aircraft fully IFR capable, fully IFR trained, and on a known route.
Any break in that list may have given reason to ‘focus the mind’ a little more.
However with all the ‘ducks in a row’ a little bit of complacency can creep in and suddenly….wow.

I too, am comfortable in a cloud and would often fly through inconvenient cloud when VFR if confident it was only for a bit, and above MSA. But I would be firmly on instruments while doing so.
The amount I fly at the moment (a lot less than many) means I still switch definitively to instruments when in cloud
I always carry the ability to do an approach to my nearest (to base) IFR airfield.
I still also try to remember the mantra ‘Aviate, navigate, communicate, with the addition….try to stay legal. In that order. Legality isn’t so important to you at your funeral.

United Kingdom

I’m going to be in a minority of one here, so I’ll preface by saying that I mostly fly in Scotland where we perhaps don’t have such unpredictable weather or terrain as the European mainland. We are also blessed with plenty of weather stations, often less than 100 miles apart.

My view is that there’s no such thing as “inadvertent” entry into IMC, least of all for those of us who hold an instrument rating. We passed two or three met exams, so we know what clouds look like and when planning the flight we know if there’s a chance of cloud, however remote. Our GPS displays our height AGL.

Failing to have a “plan B” for bad weather, failing to glance out of the window from time to time while flying under the visual flight rules, failing to check height AGL on our GPS – all that can’t just be negligence, it strikes me as deliberate recklessness – at least, from the perspective of a pilot in Scotland.

Glenswinton, SW Scotland, United Kingdom

I know this is going to be one of those things that is so easy to say after the event, but in my experience – ATC will be your friend.

We can talk all we want about adequate planning, mindsets etc, but being 500’ AGL IMC even in a flat country is no light matter. Different countries present different challenges with regards to short notice IFR. The UK and Germany are two often talked about. I can only speak about the former, and having spent years flying commercially in the UK at sub-airway levels (therefore often on pop-up clearances), I would say that when you need help, ATC will help you. There were numerous occasions when I was flying below CAS and was denied entry into it due to ‘the system’ in the UK, but when it mattered and we had no other option, ATC always came through. Obviously if it’s a preservation of life issue then ATC really doesn’t matter, save yourself and do the paperwork later, but most people will try to avoid that unless their back is really up against the wall.

United Kingdom

Just a general comment, if you ever ask FIS/ATC for “weather assistance” make sure you tell them that you are “IFR equipped & IFR rated” where you want go and that you can take headings and climb to altitudes, it will greatly help them help you: it’s a small detail that may get omitted in busy workload and busy radio call, you can’t imagine ATS relief when some PIC say they can take IFR clearance (same when asking for VFR/SVFR clearances and weather is iffy)

ATS will have lot of difficulties with “low VFR only in IMC” (assume high enough for radio & radar to work), it tough to ask VFR only to climb into clouds, or go into busy airspace and fly all over the place, or vector him in clouds outside controlled airspace at 500ft agl, trust me it’s like hot potato: no one likes to touch it, especially in busy AMS Class A TMA, just put yourself into ATS shoes, you want to help, what can you do?

Controllers can’t help a pilot to maintain visuel nor fly his aircraft in clouds, they give alerte service, airspace access, vectors and separation above radar altitudes (maybe an exception is military ATC, they can “help VFR only in IMC” by giving vectors close to the ground, send jet fighters or helicopters to help escorting out of clouds)

Last Edited by Ibra at 14 Jan 00:18
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

I’m still bothered by this concept that it’s ok or SOP to fly (intentionally or not) into cloud while under VFR in class G, whether the pilot and airplane are permitted or not. The way I always understood it is that filing a VFR flight plan (or more accurately, NOT filing an IFR flight plan) means you are subject to “Visual Flight Rules”. These rules clearly require you to remain clear of cloud in class G. At least in NL I cannot file an IFR flight plan and just go do my thing, as there are clear rules about when you are and are not “under IFR” (the famous “IFR starts now, at XX:XX”). I’ve seen looser practical implementations in other places, where common practice seems to differ from the rules. But in EASA land it seems pretty cut and dried to me.

EHRD, Netherlands

Well, of course you are basically right that by filing a VFR flight plan particularly, the pilot obviously communicates his intention to fly VFR

However, one isn’t bound by that. Nothing prevents a pilot from changing plans during flight (just like changing destinations, for exampke).

And changing from VFR to IFR is the same. When only class Golf airspace is involved, it is also totally trivial, beause no clearance is involved in this change of flight rules (one merely then has to establish radio contact with ATS, except in the UK).

So, no need to be bothered.

Last Edited by boscomantico at 14 Jan 07:30
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top