IFR in Class G airpace

I'd call to tell them I'd be descending out of their airspace by a certain fix and ask for lower to get there. Normally I would break out well above MOCA since low ceilings were pretty rare, but even the two times I did not, I heard nothing from ATC about it like "can't do that" or "call this number", I'd just drop out of their airspace. I guess there are enough people who do it in the area (everyone I knew with a runway around had a roll your own approach, they were the ones that explained the legality, incorrectly) that they kinda gave up in it.
 
Henning said:
I'd call to tell them I'd be descending out of their airspace by a certain fix and ask for lower to get there. Normally I would break out well above MOCA since low ceilings were pretty rare, but even the two times I did not, I heard nothing from ATC about it like "can't do that" or "call this number", I'd just drop out of their airspace. I guess there are enough people who do it in the area (everyone I knew with a runway around had a roll your own approach, they were the ones that explained the legality, incorrectly) that they kinda gave up in it.
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ATC doesn't have a clue about the requirements to descend below the Class G minimum IFR altitude under IMC.
 
Very interesting thread, Gary. Thank you for starting it.
 
Henning said:
I'd call to tell them I'd be descending out of their airspace by a certain fix and ask for lower to get there. Normally I would break out well above MOCA since low ceilings were pretty rare, but even the two times I did not, I heard nothing from ATC about it like "can't do that" or "call this number", I'd just drop out of their airspace.
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ATC doesn't police this, and I doubt they were aware of what you were doing (they aren't in the cockpit with you so they don't know if you're in IMC or VMC). Further, with the exception of the issues raised in the Murphy case, what you do in uncontrolled airspace is not ATC's concern. However, if the FSDO gets wind of it by any means, they will not be happy with whoever is doing "roll your own" instrument letdowns.

I guess there are enough people who do it in the area (everyone I knew with a runway around had a roll your own approach, they were the ones that explained the legality, incorrectly) that they kinda gave up in it.
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There are cowboys everywhere, but the legality of making up your own instrument approach procedures (or, rather, illegality) is quite clearly defined in 91.175(a).
 
Ron Levy said:
Neither 91.175 nor 91.177, which are the two most directly applicable to the issue of IFR approaches and departures, are "related to ATC" nor not applicable in Class G. I'd suggest giving a full and careful read through all the IFR flight rules (91.167, et seq) on that matter. When you're done, you'll see that they pretty much all apply for uncontrolled as well as controlled airspace other than filing an IFR flight plan and obtaining an ATC clearance (91.173).
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I would not even contemplate an unofficial approach so that possibility did not cross my mind. Even then, much of what relates to flying approaches involves ATC. Relax or I might be forced to prescribe some medical marijuana.
 
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There's a lot more uncontrolled IFR flight in the UK, and DIY letdowns are legal there if suitably rated and equipped. Of course, there aren't as many mountains to hit.
 
Ron Levy said:
Thanks, Wally. Then I suppose someone with such a "private" approach could have landed legally in IMC in the big brown area, but it would be a rarity.
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There was a while that there was a LNAV approach designated for one airport up in MT in the big brown area, and they mistakenly published it before they re designated the airspace as E/700
 
Gary F said:
I would not even contemplate an unofficial approach so that possibility did not cross my mind. Even then, much of what relates to flying approaches involves ATC. Relax or I might be forced to prescribe some medical marijuana.
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Never say never, you never know what tomorrow will bring. Contemplation alone will never get you in trouble, but it may get you a head start.
 
pericynthion said:
There's a lot more uncontrolled IFR flight in the UK, and DIY letdowns are legal there if suitably rated and equipped. Of course, there aren't as many mountains to hit.
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There's a lot we were allowed to do in the UK that we weren't allowed to do in the USA, but there's also a lot we were allowed to do in the USA that we weren't allowed to do in the UK. And don't even start thinking about the cost of private flying in the UK versus the USA.
 
Henning said:
Never say never, you never know what tomorrow will bring. Contemplation alone will never get you in trouble, but it may get you a head start.
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I didn't say that others could not pull this off successfully. I'm just not ready yet. I am looking forward to blasting through clouds in high Class G airspace. Somehow I'm not really worried about avoiding other traffic in these remote areas. I guess I will need to review some of the regs before I launch but I think it will be a lot of fun and this is why I fly. Eventually, somebody in the FAA may discover that a pilot somewhere is having fun and will write more regs to eliminate that possibility.
 
Gary F said:
I didn't say that others could not pull this off successfully. I'm just not ready yet.
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That's where the contemplating comes in, it's how we prepare. It's all about frame of mind, learn everything, choose what to use.;)
 
Henning said:
That's where the contemplating comes in, it's how we prepare. It's all about frame of mind, learn everything, choose what to use.;)
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In more that 40 years of flying, I have met few pilots with a higher risk tolerance than Henning, and most of them are dead. While his last name appears German, I suspect his mother must be Irish, because if all his writings are true, he certainly seems to have their luck.
 
JeffDG said:
There was a while that there was a LNAV approach designated for one airport up in MT in the big brown area, and they mistakenly published it before they re designated the airspace as E/700
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I am well aware of that problem. But, it was because the designers either did not submit the airspace request or they did, but the airspace office dropped the ball. The point is, they screwed up.

My organization intercepted them last year, otherwise they would have done the same thing at U55 and KBCE.
 
Ron Levy said:
In more that 40 years of flying, I have met few pilots with a higher risk tolerance than Henning, and most of them are dead. While his last name appears German, I suspect his mother must be Irish, because if all his writings are true, he certainly seems to have their luck.
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Yet he lives. Gotta give him credit for that.
 
Ron Levy said:
In more that 40 years of flying, I have met few pilots with a higher risk tolerance than Henning, and most of them are dead. While his last name appears German, I suspect his mother must be Irish, because if all his writings are true, he certainly seems to have their luck.
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Nope, all German to way back. Risk tolerance should not be indicative of thought intolerance. You should always look for a new idea regardless your intent to use it. Knowledge of something won't get you hurt, unless it gets a hit put out on you.;)
 
Assuming that you'd want somebody to come looking for you if you don't arrive at your destination, I wonder what kind of flight plan you could file, if you intended to fly in the clouds in class G.

I don't see how you could file IFR and get the plan activated. What could they say in the clearance, maybe "Cleared to XXX, departure frequency none, no particular route, altitude whatever you like, no frequency for departure, transponder off?"

I suppose you could file VFR (and activate it by radioing flight service). It doesn't make any sense, but would it work?
 
NoHeat said:
Assuming that you'd want somebody to come looking for you if you don't arrive at your destination, I wonder what kind of flight plan you could file, if you intended to fly in the clouds in class G.

I don't see how you could file IFR and get the plan activated. What could they say in the clearance, maybe "Cleared to XXX, departure frequency none, no particular route, altitude whatever you like, no frequency for departure, transponder off?"

I suppose you could file VFR (and activate it by radioing flight service). It doesn't make any sense, but would it work?
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You can also call someone at the destination and tell them that if you don't show up by such-and-such a time to send out the search parties. Tell them the route you're planning to take and when you expect to depart.
 
If the flight was totally within G airspace, I think the only option would be a VFR flightplan to establish the planned route and to trigger a search time for SAR.

If you were outside of Class G and proceeded on an IFR flightplan to an airport that was within class G airspace up to 14,500 and without an instrument approach, you could request a cruise clearance with the airport as the clearance limit. This would permit you to enter class G airspace under IMC as long as you maintained at least the required minimum IFR altitude for direction of flight in class G (probably 2000+ feet above any terrain/obstacles along your route). If you were above the minimum IFR altitude in class G, you could descend to the minimum altitude, but would have to be VFR in order to descend further to the airport and land. VFR in class G above 1200 AGL but below 10,000 MSL is 1 mile visibility and 500 below, 1000 above, and 2000 laterally. When you arrived at your destination, you would have to close your flightplan in the same way as if it were a VFR flightplan.
 
NoHeat said:
Assuming that you'd want somebody to come looking for you if you don't arrive at your destination, I wonder what kind of flight plan you could file, if you intended to fly in the clouds in class G.

I don't see how you could file IFR and get the plan activated. What could they say in the clearance, maybe "Cleared to XXX, departure frequency none, no particular route, altitude whatever you like, no frequency for departure, transponder off?"

I suppose you could file VFR (and activate it by radioing flight service). It doesn't make any sense, but would it work?
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You don't. If you stay in G it's nothing, no flight plan, no file. If I'm flying over to my friends ranch a few miles over I can use my departure to his approach if I want, but I don't. I go at 100', I do that without talking to anybody but my buddy even in 1/4' mile and mist. Same for miles and miles and miles of sub mile vis pipeline run through winter lows would not be pretty at all. There were areas though where you can just stay in ground effect and hop the fences always able to land safely and even bounce along carrying ice. Most of the time IMC didn't come down that far, once or twice a year, but it got less than a mile quite a bit in the winter across the TX plains and you were good to 100' no worries. The nice thing about winter weather like that was there were no fast movers down low with me like in the summer.
 
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gprellwitz said:
You can also call someone at the destination and tell them that if you don't show up by such-and-such a time to send out the search parties. Tell them the route you're planning to take and when you expect to depart.
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The GoneFlying App on iOS can do that via e-mail for ya. I never really got in the habit of using it though.
 
Gary F said:
Check out the areas of Class G in Upper Michigan on the Green Bay sectional chart. I believe that these areas (for the most part) have radar coverage. Perhaps Steven will comment.
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Radar coverage in the vicinity of the Big Bear MOA is probably pretty good, the Eagle River ARSR is about 8 miles NNW of KEGV. It's a beacon interrogator only, however. Coverage in those Class G areas in the eastern part of the Yoop wouldn't be as good. The Empire ARSR is about two miles west of Y87. In the vicinity of Y98, about 110 miles from the radar site, I wouldn't expect to see aircraft below 10,000 MSL.

Keep in mind that the provision of radar service also requires direct pilot/controller communications.
 
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Gary F said:
I didn't say that others could not pull this off successfully. I'm just not ready yet. I am looking forward to blasting through clouds in high Class G airspace. Somehow I'm not really worried about avoiding other traffic in these remote areas. I guess I will need to review some of the regs before I launch but I think it will be a lot of fun and this is why I fly. Eventually, somebody in the FAA may discover that a pilot somewhere is having fun and will write more regs to eliminate that possibility.
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If what you're after is 'free flight' in IMC there is a lot easier way to go about it. Just file a flight plan from your home airport to your home airport via a fix say 50 miles away. On the way ask ATC for a block altitude to 'maneuver'. Be willing to get vectored to some box and go play. Make the box as big as you want. aTC should be able to find a playground for you. Say, within 10 miles of abc VOR from 4,000 to 9,000. Is that enough air to play?

Just tell ATC what you want and if playing is what you want TELL them. There's no rule you HAVEto be enroute to somewhere to be in the system.
 
roncachamp said:
What is a "Class G minimum IFR altitude"?
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Well, doesn't OROCA more or less serve that purpose? That's the off-route obstruction clearance altitude. It's shown on the low-altitude IFR charts as a big brown numeral in each 1-degree quadrangles, like this. I think it provides 1000 feet of obstruction clearance, but it doesn't assure any reception of nav-aid or radio signals.
 
NoHeat said:
Well, doesn't OROCA more or less serve that purpose? That's the off-route obstruction clearance altitude. It's shown on the low-altitude IFR charts as a big brown numeral in each 1-degree quadrangles, like this. I think it provides 1000 feet of obstruction clearance, but it doesn't assure any reception of nav-aid or radio signals.
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So how does an OROCA in Class G airspace differ from one in controlled airspace?
 
Captain said:
If what you're after is 'free flight' in IMC there is a lot easier way to go about it. Just file a flight plan from your home airport to your home airport via a fix say 50 miles away. On the way ask ATC for a block altitude to 'maneuver'. Be willing to get vectored to some box and go play. Make the box as big as you want. aTC should be able to find a playground for you. Say, within 10 miles of abc VOR from 4,000 to 9,000. Is that enough air to play?

Just tell ATC what you want and if playing is what you want TELL them. There's no rule you HAVEto be enroute to somewhere to be in the system.
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That is a better idea although I will need to determine exactly how it (make a box) is done. Is it likely that ATC will do this? There is not a lot of traffic up here.
 
Gary F said:
That is a better idea although I will need to determine exactly how it (make a box) is done. Is it likely that ATC will do this? There is not a lot of traffic up here.
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I spelled it out. File a plan to a fix and then back to home base. If you want you can put 'manoeuvre demo' in the remarks. Once enroute to your fix tell ATC you want a 'block altitude' to manoeuvre'. The block altitude gives you the verticle limits and then negotiate the lateral limits. They can find some dead air for you to go play.

The lateral limits could just be radar factors or a distance from a fix or a direction from a point (say North East of ABC VOR between 15 and 25 miles). Just wok it out.

I used to fly Zero G flights in a 727. We would travel around and coordinate 10,000 foot block altitudes all over the US. Just tell ATC what you want and they can usually find a way to accommodate.
 
Captain said:
I spelled it out. File a plan to a fix and then back to home base. If you want you can put 'manoeuvre demo' in the remarks. Once enroute to your fix tell ATC you want a 'block altitude' to manoeuvre'. The block altitude gives you the verticle limits and then negotiate the lateral limits. They can find some dead air for you to go play.

The lateral limits could just be radar factors or a distance from a fix or a direction from a point (say North East of ABC VOR between 15 and 25 miles). Just wok it out.

I used to fly Zero G flights in a 727. We would travel around and coordinate 10,000 foot block altitudes all over the US. Just tell ATC what you want and they can usually find a way to accommodate.
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Thanks. Will give it a try.
 
Gary F said:
That is a better idea although I will need to determine exactly how it (make a box) is done. Is it likely that ATC will do this? There is not a lot of traffic up here.
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It's not uncommon and it's easy to do where traffic is light. "Cleared to fly northeast of Sawyer VORTAC between three four zero and zero seven zero radials within four zero mile radius, maintain block four thousand through one zero thousand."
 
Henning said:
The pilot determines what it is?
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Pilots don't determine OROCAs, they're published on the enroute charts. AFAIK they're determined without regard to the class of airspace. Take a look at the L-13 chart southwest of GGW. There's a 6000 MSL OROCA in a quadrangle that's all Class G airspace below 14,500 MSL.
 
From IPH:

OFF ROUTE OBSTRUCTION CLEARANCE ALTITUDE
An off-route obstruction clearance altitude (OROCA) is an off-route altitude that provides obstruction clearance with a 1,000-foot buffer in non-mountainous terrain areas and a 2,000-foot buffer in designated mountainous areas within the U.S. This altitude may not provide signal coverage from ground-based navigational aids, air traffic control radar, or communications coverage. OROCAs are intended primarily as a pilot tool for emergencies and situational awareness. OROCAs depicted on NACO en route charts do not provide you with an acceptable altitude for terrain and obstruction clearance for the purposes of off-route, random RNAV direct flights in either controlled or uncontrolled airspace. OROCAs are not subject to the same scrutiny as MEAs, MVAs, MOCAs, and other minimum IFR altitudes. Since they do not undergo the same obstruction evaluation, airport airspace analysis procedures, or flight inspection, they cannot provide the same level of confidence as the other minimum IFR altitudes.
 
Gary F said:
I suspect that most of those rules are related to ATC and may not apply in Class G where controllers do not venture.
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Don't "suspect." Browse through the Part 91 IFR rules. Some limit themselves to "controlled airspace" and some don't.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Don't "suspect." Browse through the Part 91 IFR rules. Some limit themselves to "controlled airspace" and some don't.
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Palmpilot said:
Yup. They start with 91.167.

http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/tex...n=div6&view=text&node=14:2.0.1.3.10.2&idno=14
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This is from the controllers handbook and covers most of it. I am only going to fly roughly 30 miles on direction and then turn around (new altitude) and fly back to Class E airspace, no landing. I know the basic stuff and as I stated earlier much of the other stuff does not apply in the absence of a controller or an approach.


Section 3. Class G Airspace

3-3-3. IFR Requirements
a. Title 14 CFR specifies the pilot and aircraft equipment requirements for IFR flight. Pilots are reminded that in addition to altitude or flight level requirements, 14 CFR Section 91.177 includes a requirement to remain at least 1,000 feet (2,000 feet in designated mountainous terrain) above the highest obstacle within a horizontal distance of 4 nautical miles from the course to be flown.
b. IFR Altitudes.
(See TBL 3-3-1.)
 
aterpster said:
From IPH:

OFF ROUTE OBSTRUCTION CLEARANCE ALTITUDE
An off-route obstruction clearance altitude (OROCA) is an off-route altitude that provides obstruction clearance with a 1,000-foot buffer in non-mountainous terrain areas and a 2,000-foot buffer in designated mountainous areas within the U.S. This altitude may not provide signal coverage from ground-based navigational aids, air traffic control radar, or communications coverage. OROCAs are intended primarily as a pilot tool for emergencies and situational awareness. OROCAs depicted on NACO en route charts do not provide you with an acceptable altitude for terrain and obstruction clearance for the purposes of off-route, random RNAV direct flights in either controlled or uncontrolled airspace. OROCAs are not subject to the same scrutiny as MEAs, MVAs, MOCAs, and other minimum IFR altitudes. Since they do not undergo the same obstruction evaluation, airport airspace analysis procedures, or flight inspection, they cannot provide the same level of confidence as the other minimum IFR altitudes.
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Thanks. The highlighted portion is notable.
 
Gary F said:
This is from the controllers handbook
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I'm not so sure that's the correct reference for what governs pilot conduct. Especially in uncontrolled airspace where ATC provides no services.

Might as well look at the Illinois statutes to figure out what the law is in Massachusetts.
 
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