he asked me if I was ready to cancel IFR
That’s not all that unusual, especially in some countries, notably Italy 
I have been reading with a lot of interested all the posts.
Recently (2 and half years) PPL licensed, and ATPL theory student (I join the group of those who say PPL is only good for your comfort zone) I still didn’t have the chance to finalized IR. Meanwhile I bought my own flying machine and with about 10 hours after the PPL I flown it from Finland to Cyprus. Later, you can find on the articles, an European trip and a flight to Portugal and back, all VFR.
I do follow IFR points, mainly low level airways during my flights. Never had major problems, I do follow the VRP indicated by ATC when arriving to major airports, was like that in France and CR (Brno). I couldn’t do that without the GNS430 and the SkyDemon, unthinkable to cross enormous sea area after Cyprus just based on charts, distance, speed and track hoping the wind to stay as forecast. It is doable? yes, but not easy and comfortable.
VFR rules define conditions of visibility and distance from clouds. I already saw in here a number of questions related with the legality or not to fly VFR on top. From the Air Law & ATC Procedures (Nordian), bellow 3,000 ft or 1,000 ft above terrain, whichever is higher, one must be clear of clouds (that is always in VFR) and in sight of the surface. Above that, yes I can fly with no visual references with the terrain.
Moreover, cruising flight operating above 3,000 ft unless instructed otherwise shall be conducted at a FL appropriate to the magnetic track. A VFR flight operating within or into areas, or along routes, designed by the appropriate ATS authority (I assume airways) in accordance with ‘submission of a flight plan’ shall maintain continuous air-ground voice communications (…) and report position as necessary to, the air traffic services providing FIS.
We are restricted to FL200, class A, otherwise, we do need clearance to B,C,D class airspaces, otherwise I don’t see why not to use IFR reference points or not to be authorize so.
I might have been a bit away from the subject but my short experience flying, and only VFR I hava always used IFR points on my FP and routes, or lecturing some of you, that was not my intention, just wanted to stress my understanding.
And yes, PPL does not prepare you for flying out of your comfort zone. I even recently met flight instructors amazed with the type of trips I do and asking me how difficult are the procedures for flying to other countries.
By the way, from Skopje to Corsiga, while crossing Italy and with a FP following an airway ATC allowed me to fly class A in order to get separation from a glider competition bellow. When cleared the area, (more than 1 hour later) he asked me if I was ready to cancel IFR :-).
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Now a totally different thing is that it would be nice if the GPS/GNS/GTN Databases would include those anyhow. This would help tremendously. Right now, what we do is to program them into our GNS430W and crosscheck them every time we fly. Then however it is really cool to fly these routes even with full AP coupling and GPSS.They are included in the databases for the GTN units.
Peter wrote:
Only that it seems bizzare to have a system of “points” which half the pilots can’t reliably find unless they use a GPS showing them, designed specially for VFR pilots.
Not really.
At larger airports the VRP’s usually are put so that they are de-conflicting IFR with VFR arrivals/departures. E.G at ZRH, the inbound – outbound routes are set in a sequence of points which go between the IFR areas so that VFR and IFR traffic do not disturb each other. Don’t forget that in airspace D there is no separation between VFR and IFR by ATC!
This is an old version (Point Sierra has changed slightly) but it illustrates what I mean. This is like this everywhere.
As for pilots not being able to find them, today that is a lame excuse as most of them fly them via GPS anyhow. True, some are not very inventive when they define the points, others are very clear indeed. It has become more difficult as today many VRP’s are positioned out in uninhabited areas for noise reasons, where there are few features clearly visible. This used to be better in older times when villages or prominent buildings could be used.
Now a totally different thing is that it would be nice if the GPS/GNS/GTN Databases would include those anyhow. This would help tremendously. Right now, what we do is to program them into our GNS430W and crosscheck them every time we fly. Then however it is really cool to fly these routes even with full AP coupling and GPSS.
Thanks all for your responses, am a bit tardy with replying as I ended up quite busy at work…
Reading the responses, especially from dublinpilot and Flyingfish, I agree with your statements, and essentially that is what I do, i.e. use GPS, enter the routing into the G1000, create custom waypoints for VRPs or key turning points where necessary, and also have the Jeppesen VFR Mobile Flitedeck running on an iPad concurrently. And I do this to ensure I always know where I am and where I am supposed to be going, know the bearing of an airfield to find it visually etc. However, I do find myself to become quite reliant on the G1000, iPad etc, to ensure that I fly my tracks precisely and essentially to IFR-like precision. And yes, flying VFR gives one the flexibility to change the flight routing and level ad hoc in uncontrolled airspace and class E without getting a clearance for that, e.g. “this looks like a nice castle down there, let me fly around that to take a closer look”.
I am just trying to recount my pre-IR days when I seemed to be comfortable with less precision and reliance on dead reckoning supported by landmarks and VOR radials, which actually works for most of uncontrolled airspace except in the vicinity of very busy terminal areas like the London TMA. Being used to IFR flying and the bells and whistles of a G1000, iPad etc which allows one to know where you are by looking at these screens means that I am using them for VFR but therefore increase my discomfort when trying not to rely on them. Maybe I just need to move on in my mind…
@Flyingfish: Great to see you here! Yes, not having deicing does reduce number of flyable days and I had to pick and choose my days for longer cross-country flying but it has still allowed me to fly EGTF to EDFZ/EDFE regularly as Terrain for most of the route is fortunately quite flat until I am over Germany. Your regular route is probably even more constrained by icing conditions. I do have to admit though that I have been scrolling through websites looking at FIKI planes. Hope to see you in Lausanne or Bonn at some point! Or at the AERO in Friedrichshafen if you are going.
Wolfgang
Wolfgang: hello from Bonn EDKB!
Knowing what you fly and having had the pleasure to see you in IFR action, I think I can give you a simple clue:
The issue is the G1000. Not meant for flying VFR. It is the drawback of having bizjet avionics in our little birds…
I think the solution is to have an iPad displaying VFR information in a dependable way ( a stable mount, ship power, thermal overload prevention).
I almost always program GPS waypoints and frequently use autopilot when flying VFR to offload some work and stay focused on traffic.
When the airfield is unfamiliar I study the charts and NOTAMs before takeoff. Removes a lot of stress, especially if complicated waypoints or entry routes are in force
If I don’t feel comfortable I say this to the last area controller:
“Unfamiliar with the airport, could you please vector me in?” Works every time.
As I am sure you have found out by now, European weather makes IFR flying in non-deiced aircraft challenging. With my DA40 I sometimes flew a humble and bumpy down low VFR route to avoid punching through potentially icing layers in IFR. That’s where IFR-style GPS navigation comes in handy.
Somehow my base manages 600 combined IFR and VFR operations per day without any VFR approach procedures. In fact it’s easier for ATC that way. Traffic is everything from ultralights and (lots of) students to fast jets making IFR straight-ins. The only thing that’s missing is scheduled airline service. Skilled ATC plus radar is the way its done.
The issue with IFR pilots flying VFR more generally is that IFR is a limited subset of flying that tends to restrict the maintenance of pilot skill by constraining him (and ATC when applicable) to specific procedures. The solution is to learn to fly again 
, not to turn VFR into IFR.
Jujupilote wrote:
[VFR entry points] were designed to :If you want to put it that way… ATC has a responsibility to prevent collisions (and in class B/C to formally separate VFR from IFR). Also, IFR approach procedures take up more airspace for a longer time than VFR approach procedures do so it makes a lot of sense from a capacity standpoint to separate the two.• put light GA away from finals to allow IFRs to roll down their IAPs “safely” (understand “away from the smelly crowd of poor amateurs”)
Jujupilote wrote:
Yes, PPL training does not teach GPS
AMC1 FCL.210
SYLLABUS OF THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE FOR THE PPL(A) AND PPL(H)
…..
9.2. RADIO NAVIGATION
…..
GNSS
GPS, GLONASS OR GALILEO
Principles
Operation
Errors and accuracy
Factors affecting accuracy
Yes; not in a GPS database is a part of it. The other is that you can be assigned a VRP which is not in a GPS. AFAIK the Garmin etc databases contain only VRPs published in the AIP VFR charts.
But the wider point I am sort of trying to make is what I have seen all over the place in the 18 years I have been flying, what initially got me into doing trip writeups, into doing that VFR in Europe presentation (now in the Articles) and what later drove the creation of EuroGA: PPL training is pretty awfully short of what is needed to get around with confidence, and the way VRPs get used around Europe is just another “gotcha” which can get chucked at a novice VFR pilot and really confuse the hell out of him.
