UK Night flying & IFR / SVFR / VFR

These are the rules as I could get from the relevant CAA documents as of 21 November 2004! As always, please check the CAA / AIS website for updates!

If you are flying in a CTR (control zone), you need ATC permission regardless of what the weather or daylight, and you need to comply. The only change is that by UK law, VFR clearances cannot be issued at night, so your flight plan (and you need one if you’re flying in a CTR, even though you may just call it “booking out” – Rules 27 & 31 of ANO Rules of the Air) will be SVFR or IFR. In real terms, to you as a pilot, it will not make a lot of difference, except that you may get delayed longer due to ATC’s separation requirements (SVFR & IFR are separated, VFR flights are not, as I am sure you’re aware). This bit is in the Rules of the Air Rule 22. Once you are outside the CTR, you are flying IFR, as SVFR only exists inside a CTR. In real terms this means you comply with Rules 29 and 30, and if you then want to enter CAS under IFR you additionally come under Rules 31 and 32. Lost yet?

The real fun comes in the weather criteria, as ANO Schedule 8 Section 1 part 1 para 2 c ii requires 10km vis for a PPL flying under SVFR in a CTR – obviously more than you require under VFR. Part d includes the bit about night qualification, and the privileges of a night qualification are in Schedule 8 part B – Ratings.

Oh, and the good bit? ATC do not know your qualifications, and are permitted to issue SVFR CTR clearances when the visibility is above 1800m, or the cloud ceiling is 600ft or higher. If you accept this clearance, you’re outside your licence (assuming you hold a PPL – IMC or IR ratings allow variations in these minima).

Bear in mind, this lot mainly concerns flight in a CTR. If you’re flying OCAS, the ANO permits a visibility of 3km, and all you have to do is fly within rules 29 and 30 (obviously in addition to your normal rules) – the IFR minimum height rule (different to rule 5), and the quadrantal rule if flying above 3000ft or the transition altitude, whichever is the higher.

As an aside, the only difference from ATC’s viewpoint between SVFR and IFR is that a specific level cannot be issued, and the pilot is on their own navigation, rather than a heading. SVFR flights require the same separation standards (with some exemptions such as the access lanes in the London CTR) as IFR flights, which is why SVFR flights may be subject to holding outside CAS, or on the ground. The navigation thing is because ATC do not know where cloud is etc, so the pilot may have to avoid cloud and deviate from a flight path. The same is true of altitude. This is why you get stuck with a vis of 10km as a minima, to allow pilots to remain within the terms their clearance and licence. So generally, expect a clearance along the lines of “leave the zone via route A not above altitude 2000 feet, SVFR, report leaving the zone”.

It sounds horrendous – but if you read through the rules they’re common sense and should keep you safe inside CAS – outside it’s back to the mark 1 eyeball, but we all fly with that anyway, and a strobe against a dark sky is easier to see than a white aeroplane against some nice fluffy white clouds!

Enjoy flying at night, and hope this info makes some sense,
Steve.