It is the same for the UK. There is no difference with ICAO. The problem is people can't fly exactly at 1500ft and end up climbing into 1600, 1700 etc.
That said if you were CLEARED to fly at 2000ft inside CAS you have +/- 300ft to work with before you bust altitude.
So if you were outside, you would fly at 1300ft for the same reason. Not many people know this.
We read about them here on EuroGA all the time.
Norwich "security" once confiscated my toothpaste, after I landed. The two jobsworths loved it and had a great laugh.
These jobsworths are everywhere - I landed in Bratislava on a southern european tour, stayed overnight to explore the city and headed back the next day. On entry to the GA terminal, my bag was found to contain a swiss army knife - I keep one in it in case He-Man, master of the universe, previously flew the plane I'm chartering and has tightened up the oil filler cap to levels usually unknown to man nor beast. By using the tin opener part as a lever, I can then unscrew the filler cap.....
However this jobsworth at security said that he couldn't allow me to take the knife because it "posed a threat". I pointed out I was the pilot, alone in the plane and asked him whether he seriously thought I would stab myself? Surely if I wanted to kill myself, all I'd need to do was point my little plane at an area of ground and close my eyes.... He couldn't argue with that but still insisted "rules are rules".
However going back to the idiosyncrasies of flying in the UK, I flew to the UK earlier this year with a couple of fellow pilots who had never made the trip before and what threw them most was the radio transmission:
"pass your message"
The number of times I heard one of my fellow pilots contact a station and be told "pass your message", only for them to look quizzically at me was too many to count.
Also, the number of times we requested a traffic service only to be told "basic service only due to workload" was a bit poor - seems this was a catch-all phrase to ensure ATC didn't have to offer a service. On the contrary, even though I've been in the air on gorgeous summer days and it's clear that Langen's controllers are heavily loaded, I have never been refused traffic information when flying in Germany.....
On the contrary, even though I've been in the air on gorgeous summer days and it's clear that Langen's controllers are heavily loaded, I have never been refused traffic information when flying in Germany.....
They don't refuse the service, but they simply won't give you any information when they are too busy. You get your 3701 or 2 squawk and this may be all you ever hear from them again. When you look outside, you can see aeroplanes zooming by from the left and right side and above and below... Honestly I prefer to be refused the service, because then I really know that I better start looking outside.
Incidentally, some of the UK idiosyncrasies made it to the overseas colonies as well - both Singapore & Malaysia practice overhead joins in VFR;
I see you have changed your "based at" info to Seletar....that's where I learned to fly over 20 years ago! Don't remember overhead joins there...but certainly in Malaysia....yes, both Malaysia and Singapore used (still use?) the UK ANO pretty much word for word....they even had the IMC rating back then
