No, the solution is called “faith accompli” 
@ Ibra where do you get your figure of 6000ft in empty spaces?
OCAS you need to be above 3000ft and in two way communication to fly IFR and that’s all you need providing you filed a flight plan.
But of course 3000ft might be below a CAS and therefore you will be treated differently from those inside CAS. Take the La Rochelle, Nantes, Rennes, Dinard corridor for instance. To do this with a FPL above FL 065 is not usually a problem in IFR or VFR (weather permitting). In the case of IFR you get clearance from La Rochelle as per flight plan to Dinard. For argument’s sake and because of semi circular rule let’s say at FL070 in IFR. In VFR you would need to fly at FL075 and would need permission, sometimes with each of the CAS zones to transit. More often you would be handed off to each zone in turn and be aurhorised transit on handover.
Below the CAS and above 3000ft in IFR you will possibly be approved as per your flight plan to somewhere along your filed route but it is more than likely that you will be vectored around Nantes and Rennes as you cannot fly above these two cities below (if memory serves me correctly) 5500ft. The same will be true for VFR alrhough there is a VFR corridor to the East and West of Nantes if you are flying VFR below 3000ft. OCAS the PIC has the responsibility for getting the appropriate transit clearances of any CAS whether TMA, or restricted areas. Overflying a P zone is forbidden unless expressly instructed to do so by ATC. D zones are niether restricted or forbidden but you could be taking your life in your hands, so it is best to investigate the zone further.
This has more to do with the “hard wall” between “Class A Controlled airspace reserved for the Pros” and “Class G free-for-all”.
As long as you stay in CAS, everything is fine. If you leave CAS, either by accident or as planned, you go from full service to “free-for-all”. The phraseology is different (“radar service terminated” rather than “IFR cancelled”) because you can continue IFR, but it means the same – you are on your own, with whatever FIS can offer in the country you are.
So why is this such a problem?
I see three
So in summary – the freedom to fly IFR in class G [and the large swathes of Class G even at higher altitudes] comes at a price – IFR flight needs to be airspace aware at all altitudes, which is unusual in Europe, but it is unnecessarily fraught by the “hard class A wall”.
The sentence “radar services terminated” is also common outside the UK, I heard it several times in Switzerland and also Norway. I’m not quite sure what it really means, because I hear it the most, when Approach controllers are handing traffic off to the Tower. Each Tower has however also radar screens in both mentioned countries, so you’re not really “dumped” and you can always re-join with Approach.
Frans wrote:
The sentence “radar services terminated” is also common outside the UK, I heard it several times in Switzerland and also Norway. I’m not quite sure what it really means, because I hear it the most, when Approach controllers are handing traffic off to the Tower. Each Tower has however also radar screens in both mentioned countries, so you’re not really “dumped” and you can always re-join with Approach.
It means that Air Traffic Control service is no longer based on radar. Either you are not given any ATC service at all (if leaving controlled airspace) or you are receiving procedural control service (which is the case when handed over to a non-radar tower). That towers have radar does not automatically mean that they have radar service. It could be that the tower controllers are not rated for radar service and in that case they use the radar only for improved situational awareness.
gallois wrote:
OCAS you need to be above 3000ft and in two way communication to fly IFR and that’s all you need providing you filed a flight plan.
But of course 3000ft might be below a CAS and therefore you will be treated differently from those inside CAS. Take the La Rochelle, Nantes, Rennes, Dinard corridor for instance. To do this with a FPL above FL 065 is not usually a problem in IFR or VFR (weather permitting). In the case of IFR you get clearance from La Rochelle as per flight plan to Dinard. For argument’s sake and because of semi circular rule let’s say at FL070 in IFR. In VFR you would need to fly at FL075 and would need permission, sometimes with each of the CAS zones to transit. More often you would be handed off to each zone in turn and be aurhorised transit on handover.
Below the CAS and above 3000ft in IFR you will possibly be approved as per your flight plan to somewhere along your filed route but it is more than likely that you will be vectored around Nantes and Rennes as you cannot fly above these two cities below (if memory serves me correctly) 5500ft. The same will be true for VFR alrhough there is a VFR corridor to the East and West of Nantes if you are flying VFR below 3000ft. OCAS the PIC has the responsibility for getting the appropriate transit clearances of any CAS whether TMA, or restricted areas. Overflying a P zone is forbidden unless expressly instructed to do so by ATC. D zones are niether restricted or forbidden but you could be taking your life in your hands, so it is best to investigate the zone further.
That is what I meant, if you are going IFR OCAS between 3kft-6kft in France, you need to read NOTAMS & VFR chart, comply with any “overflying rules” and also get your own transits from FIS/ATC, worth having a think about your options for lost COM/TXP while your are outside, above FL60 you are in the joined airspace with decent radar altitude above standard 5kft transition, things are way seamless maybe except Paris & Nice & Nantes, even on VFR your way is paved…
Cobalt wrote:
So in summary – the freedom to fly IFR in class G [and the large swathes of Class G even at higher altitudes] comes at a price – IFR flight needs to be airspace aware at all altitudes, which is unusual in Europe, but it is unnecessarily fraught by the “hard class A wall”.
Indeed, it takes a wall of Class A or busy TMA to notice it 
Frans wrote:
The sentence “radar services terminated” is also common outside the UK, I heard it several times in Switzerland and also Norway
In the two countries that is mostly related to terrain rather than " superior radar ATC not talking to inferior Golf PIC or inferior non-radar Golf ATC" !
Lot of procedures in the two countries vectoring will revert to procedural at some point (also as A_A said they may have radar screens for situational awarness but airport controllers or equipement cannot deliver a radar service), even on procedural will revert to cancel and visual down the road, as low as MAPt & DH due to topography, but I gather the main concern for anyone flying IFR without radar is hitting terrain rather than busting nearby airspace on descent or missed (TMA, CTR or ATZ) or touching another traffic
In some places you have to be sufficiently high inside airspace to get enough RT reception to ask for your clearance to enter, I expect radar contact to appear +1000ft higher than radio contact , this happended to me once when I tried getting VFR clearance with someone else to rely it, British pilots are scared to death when it comes to entering CAS without clearance that foreign ATC are puzzled by what we are trying to acheive or clarify
Airborne_Again wrote:
That towers have radar does not automatically mean that they have radar service. It could be that the tower controllers are not rated for radar service and in that case, they use the radar only for improved situational awareness.I’m 100% sure that Bern for example has a radar in their tower and provide also traffic advisories towards both IFR and VFR traffic, based on radar. It’s normal class D airspace, so maybe they take the missing separation very seriously. Same for Torp and Oslo Tower, they’re both radar covered, but also “just” class D airspace, instead of C in the Oslo and Farris TMA. The Bern TMA is however also class D, so I’m not quite sure why Bern Arrival says “radar services terminated” when descending from the TMA into the CTR.
superior radar ATC not talking to inferior Golf PIC or inferior non-radar Golf ATC"I would like to see the faces of British pilots flying in Denmark or Norway, where ‘inferior’ VFR traffic gets a ‘superior’ service with direct clearances into class C airspace.
Nonetheless, I heard several times “request flight following” on Copenhagen during my last trip. Copenhagen replied each time very politely with an “expect flight information service” to those pilots. Was quite funny to hear, as flight following is simply not something European.
Great compliments to the social media guys of Skyguide (Swiss ATC), they answered my question fast:
“For separation we can only apply procedural rules, or reduced separation. The radar is used for planning the in/out IFR sequence and for providing traffic information.”
There is indeed no full radar service in the CTR anymore, so now the sentence “radar services terminated” makes also sense, when switching towards the Tower. But it might still have some other interpretation, compared to the UK.
It’s like the UK as well between CTR/ATZ on handover between APP/TWR (TWR ATC are not rated to use radar, this is the case even for Gatwick or Southend), for Swiss ATC you are referring to handover between TMA/CTR
The UK is peculiar because you can have IFR from TMA/ATZ with Golf in between without CTR/CTA (managed by radar all the time in UK), the non-radar flying in Golf seems to rest your IFR counters
