Can a non-current instrument pilot file IFR on a VMC flight?

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Baron62

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Baron62
I am a rusty instrument rated pilot and I was wondering if I could fly an IFR clearance on a VMC day? If I encountered IMC, then I would cancel my IFR clearance. A friend tells me he does this for practice in the system when not current. I know that if I am head down I should have a safety pilot to see and avoid.
 
Negative. IFR clearance has nothing to do with conditions of flight.

61.57
(c) Instrument experience. Except as provided in paragraph (e) of this section, a person may act as pilot in command under IFR... ...only if:
[instrument currency/recency follows]

paragraph (e) refers to 119/121/125 ops
 
Baron62 said:
I am a rusty instrument rated pilot and I was wondering if I could fly an IFR clearance on a VMC day? If I encountered IMC, then I would cancel my IFR clearance. A friend tells me he does this for practice in the system when not current. I know that if I am head down I should have a safety pilot to see and avoid.
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A good friend of mine has a sign on his desk, it says:

"Nope."
 
EdFred said:
Negative. IFR clearance has nothing to do with conditions of flight.

61.57
(c) Instrument experience. Except as provided in paragraph (e) of this section, a person may act as pilot in command under IFR... ...only if:
[instrument currency/recency follows]
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I agree with your answer "Negative". But it seems to me that "or weather conditions less than the minimums..." has to do with conditions of flight, so it does have "something" to do with conditions of flight.
 
§61.57 Recent flight experience: Pilot in command.
(c) Instrument experience. Except as provided in paragraph (e) of this section, a person may act as pilot in command under IFR or weather conditions less than the minimums prescribed for VFR only if: ...
 
Salty said:
I agree with your answer "Negative". But it seems to me that "or weather conditions less than the minimums..." has to do with conditions of flight, so it does have "something" to do with conditions of flight.
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The clearance itself has nothing to do with the conditions of flight. The weather conditions less than minimums refer to class G airspace, which you shouldn't/won't get a clearance for, since, well, uncontrolled. Or in some cases in controlled airspace before you've gotten your clearance.
 
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coma24 said:
I'm guesing you mean with plenty of time prior to entering IMC...but I still had to chuckle a little bit :)
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Yes, definitely while maintaining VMC.
 
EdFred said:
Negative. IFR clearance has nothing to do with conditions of flight.

61.57
(c) Instrument experience. Except as provided in paragraph (e) of this section, a person may act as pilot in command under IFR... ...only if:
[instrument currency/recency follows]

paragraph (e) refers to 119/121/125 ops
Click to expand...

Thanks, That is the way I read it as well for part 91. You must be IFR current to fly an IFR clearance as PIC.
 
No can dooski. If you want to file IFR, IMC or not, someone at the controls must be rated and current.
 
Even if you could, seems like a bad idea, if you say you’re IFR folks might expect you to be able to do IFR stuff, knock the rust off and get current than file
 
chemgeek said:
If you want to file IFR, IMC or not, someone at the controls must be rated and current.
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I remember the first time I flew in actual IMC during my instrument training, my instructor said to me, "Don't screw up. You are on my ticket now." lol
 
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If you file it you should be prepared to fly it. ATC assumes you can fly any deviations they give you.
 
Piper18O said:
I remember the first time I flew in actual IMC during my instrument training, my instructor said to me, "Don't screw up. You are on my ticked now." lol
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Actually, even if you were rated and filed it under your name, the instructor will still be responsible.
 
Baron62 said:
A friend tells me he does this for practice in the system when not current
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What do you mean by "not current" ? If you review the currency rules that EdFred referenced above there are stipulations to this too. Don't file if you're not actually proficient to fly it. You can still request "practice approaches" etc., to regain experience / currency / practice / etc.
 
Ya, anybody can fly an IFR clearance. I have heard of guys who don’t have any certificates file and fly IFR.
Is it legal? No


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To answer the question posed by the title of this thread, yes, you can file IFR. Even without an IFR rating, anyone can file. You just can't accept any clearance unless you meet all the requirements of flying in less than VFR conditions.
 
Witmo said:
To answer the question posed by the title of this thread, yes, you can file IFR. Even without an IFR rating, anyone can file. You just can't accept any clearance unless you meet all the requirements of flying in less than VFR conditions.
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...and are IFR current.
 
Witmo said:
To answer the question posed by the title of this thread, yes, you can file IFR. Even without an IFR rating, anyone can file. You just can't accept any clearance unless you meet all the requirements of flying in less than VFR conditions.
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I might as well get all pedantic here and say this: You can file IFR, but you may not accept the clearance ... You know, since we are getting all technical up in here. :p:p
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Wouldn’t that by definition be one of the requirements?
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The way he worded it, and taking the statement all by itself, it allowed for flying under IFR if the weather was better than VFR mins.

You just can't accept any clearance unless you meet all the requirements of flying in less than VFR conditions.
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Which implies you can accept one if it's better than VFR minimums.
 
EdFred said:
The way he worded it, and taking the statement all by itself, it allowed for flying under IFR if the weather was better than VFR mins.



Which implies you can accept one if it's better than VFR minimums.
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LOL. You WOULD look at it that way.

I read it as “You can accept any clearance if you meet all the requirements. . .” Two totally opposite ways of looking at the same sentence.
 
Baron62 said:
I am a rusty instrument rated pilot and I was wondering if I could fly an IFR clearance on a VMC day? If I encountered IMC, then I would cancel my IFR clearance. A friend tells me he does this for practice in the system when not current. I know that if I am head down I should have a safety pilot to see and avoid.
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While you aren't allowed to fly under instrument flight rules, you can fly practice instrument approaches as long as you do it under visual flight rules.
 
genna said:
I might as well get all pedantic here and say this: You can file IFR, but you may not accept the clearance ... You know, since we are getting all technical up in here. :p:p
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Well, you can accept the clearance too. But you're not doing it legally. ;)
 
Baron62 said:
I am a rusty instrument rated pilot and I was wondering if I could fly an IFR clearance on a VMC day? If I encountered IMC, then I would cancel my IFR clearance. A friend tells me he does this for practice in the system when not current. I know that if I am head down I should have a safety pilot to see and avoid.
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No. You have to be rated and current even to file an IFR flight, no matter the Wx. conditions.
 
luvflyin said:
No. The question is not fly in the system, just file
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The FAA assumes that if you file IFR you intend to fly IFR. I read that somewhere. might go hand in hand with forgetting something on your medical. The FAA doesn’t default to “he must have forgot” the assume you intended to deceive.

So why would you file if you didn’t intend to fly, barring a weather change. Besides quibbling and looking for reasons why you should be able to do something you have no reason to do that could go bad but probably won’t. What is your point?
 
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Yeah - not a good idea. Even in VMC, you can bust your altitude, or any number of things that could bring attention to your illegal self. To practice when not current, fly under the hood with a safety pilot - have him or her give you vectors. Then ask for the practice approach. Good for practice, but you do need a pilot buddy.
 
Landing Fees said:
The FAA assumes that if you file IFR you intend to fly IFR. I read that somewhere. might go hand in hand with forgetting something on your medical. The FAA doesn’t default to “he must have forgot” the assume you intended to deceive.
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Unless someone is conspiring with others to do something illegal, I don't think there is any statute or regulation against intending to do something and then not doing it. And even in conspiracy, my understanding is that it requires at least one overt act on the part of one of the conspirators.

So why would you file if you didn’t intend to fly, barring a weather change. Besides quibbling and looking for reasons why you should be able to do something you have no reason to do that could go bad but probably won’t. What is your point?
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Hopefully, it should be clear to everyone in this thread by now that you can't file and fly IFR if you are out of IFR currency.

However, one example of a motivation for filing IFR without flying IFR was raised in the thread that was linked above. In that thread, there was discussion of the fact that some pilots like to check the "IFR" box instead of the "VFR" box on the flight plan form when they want VFR flight following, because that causes it to go to ATC instead of to Flight Service. Some people interpret the interpretation letter that was uploaded to that thread as saying that it's not legal to do that. I think that's a misinterpretation of the letter, but that's just my opinion as a non-attorney. The main drawback I see to the procedure is that it reportedly confuses some controllers. Personally, I like to avoid long drawn-out explanations on ATC frequencies.

Of course It is very common, when a pilot asks for a practice approach, for the controller to say "cleared for the approach" at some point in the process. My understanding is that this does not constitute an IFR clearance as long as they don't say "cleared to xxx," where xxx is an airport or other clearance limit. (And ATC often reminds pilots to maintain VFR conditions in that situation.) I think it would be a bad idea to file IFR for that purpose, because the flying of approaches would make it more likely for the filed flight plan to cause confusion.
 
IFR has *NOTHING* to do with weather; as the acronym itself implies, it is all about the type of flight rules you will be flying under

I always wonder why people ask about IMC and VMC vs IFR

also, one of the nice things about the FARs, is they really do spell it out in black and white when you may or may not accept an instrument, read: IFR, clearance
 
Eric Brunelle said:
Yeah - not a good idea. Even in VMC, you can bust your altitude, or any number of things that could bring attention to your illegal self. To practice when not current, fly under the hood with a safety pilot - have him or her give you vectors. Then ask for the practice approach. Good for practice, but you do need a pilot buddy.
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I have asked for practice approaches when I was solo in the plane and just not used the hood and not logged it, still good overall from a proficiency perspective
 
Witmo said:
To answer the question posed by the title of this thread, yes, you can file IFR. Even without an IFR rating, anyone can file. You just can't accept any clearance unless you meet all the requirements of flying in less than VFR conditions.
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More specifically, you can't operate under IFR or fly in less than VMC. Not all IFR operations require a clearance.
 
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