[MichaelP]

Yesterday I went on a trip to the Scilly Isles.
An IFR flight plan was filed we thought... But an enquiry with London Information later revealed that it was not opened.
Biggin Hill did give us an IFR clearance which was read back correctly and we departed into controlled airspace.

We were routed in an unexpected way to the east and then south and along the coast.
At one point we were instructed to go to “one fu”???
A look around on the navigation display and we found WAFFU, I think this was what he meant, nevertheless we were given a vector instead.

For the foreign pilot flying here IFR and VFR interchangeability is confusing.
You can suddenly find yourself ‘no longer being treated by ATC as being an IFR flight on an IFR flight plan’ even in IMC outside of controlled airspace, and be told to remain clear of controlled airspace without having been told your flight rules have changed.


A one hour delay to get fuel at Biggin Hill (where they charge a huge landing fee), meant that although we had IFR reserves to St Mary’s we decided to drop into Dunkeswell for fuel.
So requested a descent after Bournemouth and cancelled IFR. Did we need to?


After filling the tanks, a huge bill for 100LL, glad I wasn’t paying, we flew to St Mary’s and took the shuttle bus to Juliet’s restaurant for an excellent lunch.

An IFR flight plan was filed back to Biggin Hill, but was it?
We received a clearance, and took off to climb to FL90 and progress eastwards.
There was a line of cumulus clouds before Bournemouth and at +1C there was a risk of icing, and of course with the build ups there would be turbulence.
We were cleared to descend to 7,000 feet, and then to 5,000 feet and were IMC for the most part in the bottom of the clouds.
We were told to remain clear of controlled airspace and call solent radar. This meant that our flight was no longer being treated as controlled IFR.
Managed to make contact with Solent and got a clearance through their airspace... Then it was on to Farnborough, descend to 2,500 feet VFR and this suited me! So with the 2 and 2 in mind we dropped further to 2,300 feet to stay below the TMA.
This of course shortened our time into Biggin Hill as doing the IFR routing there would have taken us a long way around.

In North America we would at least know our IFR flight plan had been cancelled.

After landing I asked whether our flight plan had been closed “if it had been opened”.