I am the last to know the rules on anything 
but under JAA the VFR min was 3000m, unless you had the IMCR in which case it was 1500m (and then you could fly down to 1500m VFR worldwide, where not locally limited otherwise). The funny bit was the 1800m min vis for the IMCR under IFR 
Around 2012 the 3000m came down to the ICAO min of 1500m.
Of course 1500m is instrument flight in all but name, unless you are following the M25 in a helicopter at 200ft But then night flight, on a real night, is instrument flying too.
These rules are nutty as a fruitcake, but that’s the price paid for the existence of VFR and the basic PPL as the most affordable item on the school price list. If you did the obvious thing and offered just IFR, plus an “aerobatic PPL”, you could cut all that crap out. But such a high barrier to entry would kill the GA industry, and nobody wants to do that.
Was the minimum 1500m in those days? That was quite a big reduction for the UK.
ortac wrote:
The issue is with the people who drafted SERA, who took the term “IMC”, commonly understood by most pilots to mean “conditions requiring reference to instruments” or even just “inside cloud”, and “stole” it and gave it a completely new definition.
The current EASA definition of VMC/IMC is exactly the same that I learned during ground school pre-EASA, and pre-JAA. In other words at a time Norwegian regulations were still in effect.
ortac wrote:
The issue is with the people who drafted SERA, who took the term “IMC”, commonly understood by most pilots to mean “conditions requiring reference to instruments” or even just “inside cloud”, and “stole” it and gave it a completely new definition.
The “IMC” and “VMC” concepts were not introduced with SERA!
They have been along with their present meaning (although the exact definition has changed over time) in both international and national regulations for a very long time. They were well established when I first learned to fly in 1983.
I don’t think the FAR has this issue because they just define VFR minima directly, rather than first defining IMC and then referencing this to define something else. Is that correct?
I don’t know about the FARs, but SERA does exactly what you ask for! It defines VFR minima (i.e. VMC) directly and then defines IMC to be conditions which are below these minima. I actually quoted the IMC definition from SERA some posts back. Here it is again:
“’instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)’ mean meteorological conditions expressed in terms of visibility, distance from cloud, and ceiling, less than the minima specified for visual meteorological conditions”
Cobalt wrote:
Both definitions are equally valid,
I agree with what you have said in this discussion except this. It is a bad idea to use the same term with different meaning in the same context. I say “in cloud”, “clear of cloud”, “ground in sight”, “fly visually”, “on instruments” etc. to distinguish conditions where you need to use instruments to control the aircraft and where you do not.
I don’t think this is a linguistic issue. The issue is with the people who drafted SERA, who took the term “IMC”, commonly understood by most pilots to mean “conditions requiring reference to instruments” or even just “inside cloud”, and “stole” it and gave it a completely new definition.
There was no reason to do this, they could have just as easily used a new term such as “sub-VMC” or whatever or just not used any such terminology at all.
I don’t think the FAR has this issue because they just define VFR minima directly, rather than first defining IMC and then referencing this to define something else. Is that correct?
It is pretty poor that we don’t have a universal definition of IMC and SERA creating one contrary to common usage doesn’t make it so.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
I dont see what difference it would have made?
If it was indeed at my altitude and I could see it, then I could avoid it.
This reminds me of a particular scene in Lewis Carrol’s “through the looking glass”.
’There’s glory for you!’
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
Language is a funny thing. There is everyday use, and them there are legal definitions, and thet don’t have to be the same. It only gets problematic if these realms gets mixed. ICAO and most countries have the definition that VMC are conditions which allow you to fly VFR, IMC are conditions that require you to fly IFR, and Special VFR are flown in IMC. Pilot think that VMC are conditions in which you can maintain control visually, IMC are conditions where you have to fly on instruments.
Both definitions are equally valid, we only have to be careful that we use the legal definition when it comes to air law, and vice
versa. Otherwise, wr will claim that brakes are primary flight controls, an opinon that is perfectly valid when applied to musing about what one needs to control a skittish taildragger in a gusting crosswind, but does not apply when intepreting rules.
This happens all the time in the UK, due to so much Mode A…
However I don’t recall getting visual with a single non mode C aircraft above about 3000ft.
It’s a particular demographic that does mode A, or non TXP.
Airborne_Again wrote:
I recall one flight (in controlled airspace, class E IIRC) in and out of layered clouds at FL80. The controller gave me traffic information about unknown traffic at unknown altitude (mode A transponder, squawking 7000 apparently) a few miles away and closing. I could only hope that it was not “VFR” traffic at my level because there would have been no way for me to see in time to avoid even though it would have been possible to fly visually.
I dont see what difference it would have made?
