To fly Visual Flight Rules (VFR), you must be flying in Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC).<\/p>\n
Yet while VFR is typically wrapped up into a quick statement like:\u00a0 ‘Able to see the ground’.\u00a0 Visual Meteorological Conditions vary.<\/p>\n
Airspace<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Airspace is broken up into a number of categories (A to G).<\/p>\n The type of airspace dictates if you’re allowed to fly VFR at all and if so, what visibility you must have both horizontally and vertically.<\/p>\n So for example, VFR flight in Class A<\/strong> airspace is not<\/strong> permitted.<\/p>\n Class C..E<\/strong> airspace:\u00a0 Requires 5km forward visibility, 1500m horizontal and 1000ft vertically from cloud (below FL100 [~10,000ft subject to air pressure]<\/em>).<\/p>\n Class F..G<\/strong> airspace:\u00a0 Below FL100 and Above 3000ft Above Mean Sea Level (amls), Requires 5km forward visibility, 1500m horizontal and 1000ft vertical from clouds.\u00a0\u00a0 Below 3000ft amls & 140knots indicated air speed, you need the same forward visibility but be insight of the surface and free of cloud (i.e. no clouds).<\/p>\n * Class B airspace in the UK is only allocated above FL245, outside of the ceiling range of aircraft like Cessna’s so you don’t need to worry about it.<\/em><\/p>\n Eight, Five and Three….<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The visibility rules are fairly straight forward because in almost all airspace the distances group into sets.\u00a0\u00a0 Above FL100 you need Eight <\/strong>kilometres of forward visibility.\u00a0\u00a0 At all times<\/span> you need at least<\/em> five<\/strong> kilometres forward visibility.\u00a0 Above three<\/strong> thousand feet you need 1000ft vertical height from cloud, 1500ft horizontal, below it you need to be clear of cloud.<\/p>\n ….The exceptions to this are Class A and Class B airspace, you can’t fly in either.\u00a0\u00a0 Eight and Five still apply, but if you could fly there you’d need to be clear of cloud.<\/em><\/p>\n Radio Contact<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n An aircraft cannot fly in Class B<\/strong>, C<\/strong> or D<\/strong> airspace during the notified periods of Air Traffic Control operation until the pilot has obtained an air traffic clearance<\/span> to do so.\u00a0\u00a0 While in the airspace the pilot must listen to the appropriate radio frequency and comply with ATC requests wherever able to do so – therefore the plane must have a working radio (and the pilot must hold a license to use it [or be ‘permitted’ to use the radio]).<\/em><\/p>\n In Class E, F and G airspace, radio contact with air traffic control is not mandatory outside of Aerodrome Traffic Zones (ATZ’s).<\/p>\n It is worth noting that the pilot is responsible for keeping his\/her plane flying legally, so while Air Traffic Control can request you to do something in controlled air space, if this would stop you from flying in VFR\/VMC conditions, it is the pilots responsibility to say they cannot<\/em> comply with the request.<\/p>\n Special VFR<\/strong><\/p>\n …..The get out for how to fly into an aerodrome that is within a Class A control zone (i.e. London). \u00a0 And something for another post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To fly Visual Flight Rules (VFR), you must be flying in Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC). Yet while VFR is typically wrapped up into a quick statement like:\u00a0 ‘Able to see the ground’.\u00a0 Visual Meteorological Conditions vary. Airspace Airspace is broken up into a number of categories (A to G). The type of airspace dictates if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fortyfivehours.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fortyfivehours.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fortyfivehours.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortyfivehours.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortyfivehours.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortyfivehours.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortyfivehours.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fortyfivehours.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortyfivehours.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortyfivehours.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}