Special VFR

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Jean-Pierre
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Special VFR

Post by Jean-Pierre »

Is thousand foot ceiling for VFR in controlled without special clearance? When?
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Jonathan
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Re: Special VFR

Post by Jonathan »

Since the beginning of 2009, in FSS control zones, and I believe it applies to every control zone, you can enter without SVFR with a celing below 1000ft as long as you are able to remain VFR. The only criteria that makes SVFR required is visibility below 3SM.
1. The minimum visual meteorological conditions for VFR flight in controlled airspace established in
CARs 602.114 stipulate that to operate an aircraft in VFR flight in a control zone a pilot must
maintain a vertical distance of not less than 500 feet from cloud and not less than 500 feet above
ground level except when taking off or landing. Also, where reported, the ground visibility shall not
be less than three miles.

2. The special VFR flight conditions established in CARs 602.117 stipulate an aircraft may be operated
in special VFR flight within a control zone when authorization to do so has been requested and
obtained from the appropriate air traffic control unit. Therefore, it is a pilot’s responsibility to request
special VFR when flight conditions are such that the weather minima for VFR flight in a control zone
cannot be met.

3. The need for flight service specialists to inform an aircraft when the ceiling is less than 1,000 feet is
removed from FS MANOPS as it does not reflect the requirements stipulated in the regulations, and
the definition “VFR Weather Conditions” is deleted from FS MANOPS for the same reason. These
changes align FS MANOPS with the direction given to pilots in the regulations.
Now, I can't understand how to remain VFR in a control zone with a ceiling below 1000ft?
And why are the pilots now responsible for the ceiling but not for visibility?
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natej
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Re: Special VFR

Post by natej »

Jonathan wrote:Now, I can't understand how to remain VFR in a control zone with a ceiling below 1000ft?
And why are the pilots now responsible for the ceiling but not for visibility?
Who said pilots are responsible for ceiling or visibility? It's the weather observers duty to make the observation and call Vis and ceiling heights.
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AuxBatOn
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Re: Special VFR

Post by AuxBatOn »

Isn't SVFR 1 SM FLIGHT Vis? The ground observer cannot observe flight vis, therfore, it's the pilot's call. I think Hedley may know a thing or 2 about that ;)
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Re: Special VFR

Post by natej »

AuxBatOn wrote:Isn't SVFR 1 SM FLIGHT Vis? The ground observer cannot observe flight vis, therfore, it's the pilot's call. I think Hedley may know a thing or 2 about that ;)
This is true, ground vis and flight vis do differ. But... I (fss) can't raise the vis based on a pirep. I have to base Vis on what I observe from the tower. Our airport is constantly fogged in early morning in the fall. CMA has to circle over the NDB till the fog around the tower clears, and I can raise the prevailing visibility. Even if he can see 100 miles in every direction... kinda sucks, but it works.
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Jonathan
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Re: Special VFR

Post by Jonathan »

natej wrote:Who said pilots are responsible for ceiling or visibility? It's the weather observers duty to make the observation and call Vis and ceiling heights.
I meant: why do we leave the responsability to the pilot for determining if they are able to remain VFR with a ceiling below 1000ft, but in case of visibility less then 3, we tell them that SVFR is required?

I have pilots telling me they are remaining VFR when rapported ceiling is below 1000 feet (but vis greater then 3). So they fly within the zone without SVFR authorization and are allowed to. How is it possible to remain VFR in that condition? I was unable to get an answer for that...

Jean-Pierre, I am sorry if I use your topic to ask my questions :roll:
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Bushav8er
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Re: Special VFR

Post by Bushav8er »

Jonathan wrote:
natej wrote:Who said pilots are responsible for ceiling or visibility? It's the weather observers duty to make the observation and call Vis and ceiling heights.
I meant: why do we leave the responsability to the pilot for determining if they are able to remain VFR with a ceiling below 1000ft, but in case of visibility less then 3, we tell them that SVFR is required?

I have pilots telling me they are remaining VFR when rapported ceiling is below 1000 feet (but vis greater then 3). So they fly within the zone without SVFR authorization and are allowed to. How is it possible to remain VFR in that condition? I was unable to get an answer for that...

Jean-Pierre, I am sorry if I use your topic to ask my questions :roll:
I agreed with Jonathan. For a control zones, Class B through E, VFR is 3 miles (flt vis) and 500' agl, 500' from cloud = 1000' agl to me. Anything less is Special VFR. Further, if you are IFR how can you 'cancel' unless first requesting the Special (Contact approach aside)?
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aviatrixfss
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Re: Special VFR

Post by aviatrixfss »

I had a very frustrating discussion with our regional "specialist" regarding this issue. Here's how it went...


Further to the email we received regarding SVFR, I am wondering how a pilot can remain VFR without a ceiling of 1000 ft. According to CAR’s a pilot must be 500 ft below the cloud and 500 ft above the ground.

Home > Transport Canada



Part VI - General Operating and Flight Rules




Canadian Aviation Regulations 2008-2






DIVISION VI - VISUAL FLIGHT RULES
Minimum Visual Meteorological Conditions for VFR Flight in Controlled Airspace
602.114 No person shall operate an aircraft in VFR flight within controlled airspace unless
(a) the aircraft is operated with visual reference to the surface;
(b) flight visibility is not less than three miles;
(c) the distance of the aircraft from cloud is not less than 500 feet vertically and one mile horizontally; and
(d) where the aircraft is operated within a control zone,
(i) when reported, ground visibility is not less than three miles, and
(ii) except when taking off or landing, the distance of the aircraft from the surface is not less than 500 feet.

We went through this whole debate a number of years ago, and the wording was changed back to require 3 miles and 1000 ft for VFR flight in a control zone. Does Transport Canada agree that 5 miles and 100 ft constitutes VFR within a control zone? Somehow I doubt it. I was a pilot for over 20 years, and VFR in a control zone has always required 3 miles and 1000 ft. To have an IFR on approach with a VFR aircraft flogging around just below the cloud at 100 or 200 ft is an accident waiting to happen. I hope Nav Canada is willing to accept the responsibility for that…I’m certainly not.

I look forward to your reply.


and then...


My answers are embedded below. Hope this helps, keep the questions coming if you need further.

We had a situation this morning where an IFR aircraft was on approach with 9sm vis and 600ft ceiling. A VFR aircraft (a Lear Jet if you can believe that) was also inbound. The professional pilots in the Lear elected to remain outside of the zone while the IFR landed. What if he had wanted to enter the zone VFR with the ceiling at 600 ft? Could he legally have done that? Ans: The point is that we have no way of knowing if he can legally do that or not. He is the one who determines if he can maintain VFR based on flight observations of the cloud.

When the IFR aircraft was on final and had the airport in sight, he requested that I cancel his IFR and continue VFR (in order not to delay the SVFR that the Lear was waiting for). I told him that with a ceiling of 600 ft I couldn’t cancel his IFR clearance. Should I have cancelled his IFR clearance? Ans: Again, his choice. He is the one that needs to determine if he can maintain VFR. We can’t tell him that we won’t cancel his IFR flight if the visibility is 3NM or greater. If he asks we do it.

Did the Lear need SVFR? Ans: Only the pilots know.

There are other situations that are not covered in your emails. What if an enroute aircraft wants to transit the zone and fly directly over the airport? I would know what the ceiling is overhead. Does this aircraft need SVFR? What about another aircraft inbound to land at the same time? Is it able to come in and land VFR while the other aircraft needs SVFR? Ans: Again, we will have individual pilots making their own decisions on the maintaining VFR. The controllers are prepared to have SVFR and VFR mixed, or VFR and IFR mixed, but never SVFR and IFR within the zone at the same time.

What about an aircraft on the ground that wants to depart VFR when the ceiling is 600ft? How is he to know, unless we tell him, that he cannot meet the requirements for VFR flight within a control zone, without telling him what the ceiling is and advising him that SVFR is required? Ans: Because ceiling/cloud requirements are based on flight visibility we can’t tell him that SVFR is required. We can pass him the weather, and after he departs he can always ask for SVFR. In fact-he is legally required to ask for SVFR. (Nobody has a plan what to do if this happens and there is an IFR in the zone as well) Remember he does not need to maintain the clearance if he is climbing out on departure.

Since when did our weather reports not represent the weather in the control zone? Unlike AWOS, we look out to the horizon to judge the sky for the METAR. It is representative of the entire zone, not only the portion of the sky directly overhead. Ans: Yes, and at many sites we can’t see all of the control zone, and there is also case where visibility is limited in any direction by weather. Also not terribly relevant as our determination of ceiling does not matter, it’s the pilots perspective that is called for under the regulations.

Who at Transport Canada has interpreted the CARs so that a 1000 ft ceiling is no longer required for VFR in a control zone? I’ve only seen the interpretation by Nav Canada…not Transport. Ans: The FSS you represent operates under NC operating certificate, do you really need to know anyone else in the chain of decision makers?
And who decided that the METAR ceiling was no longer representative of the control zone? Ans: I never meant to imply that. It very well may, however an aircraft occupies only a portion at one time, and that is the only portion that he legally needs to be concerned with. I would really like to know who is making these decisions.

As I mentioned in my previous email, this happened several years ago causing a lot of confusion, and then the 1000 ft ceiling was reinstated because a you must have a ceiling of 1000 ft in order to meet the CARs 602.114 requirement of being 500ft above ground and 500 ft below cloud. I don’t see any other way that this can be interpreted! Ans: Another 180 could happen at any time. NC made the determination as per our operating certificate. TC was unable to raise any objections and they had not done what needed to be done to keep this as practice. If and when TC gives us the power through different regulations, we will change our procedures to match. We are bound by the law and can’t make up our own rules. TC put rules in place without the support of CARS and they were able to do that as both the service provider and the regulator, we are not.

I appreciate your time in this matter. Sorry if I sound a little frustrated…I take the safety aspect of my job very seriously, and this new interpretation of CAR’s decreases the safety factor in my opinion. Ans: That’s fine, understanding is a really important part of what makes us safe. Please don’t believe that we don’t take safety seriously.

I would just like to state again, the point of this is not to encourage pilots to disobey the law. The point is that we can’t determine if they are or are not. The responsibility is on the pilot to conduct his flight under CARS. We will never say “SVFR NOT REQUIRED”, perhaps the basic truth is that its “PILOTS DISCRETION”.


It's like banging your head against a brick wall.


A couple of years ago, NC instituted this change for the VFR tower world. While it never really took in the western half of Canada, back east they have been running SVFR in control zones with towers since then. TC did give us some feedback, but unfortunately they were not willing to make the changes to CARS to make it a reality. The change required would be to write in the requirements somewhere that the ceiling as observed from a single point of observation was good for the control zone. Instead, with the way the flight ceiling requirements are now, there is the very common possibility of an aircraft having a higher ceiling in a different direction or further from the point of observation and being able to maintain that. The pilot has to meet all these requirements, our involvement is limited to (d) (i), having a requirement for a minimum reported ground visibility in addition to his flight visibility. All of the rest of the requirements we can’t report, they fall back on the pilot to be responsible for. If the pilot is flying within the CARS regulations, we should be getting a request for SVFR anytime his flight visibility drops below 3 miles, regardless of what we report on the ground. That doesn’t happen either. The rationale is one that is a little overused but it is certainly the way that things seem to be in this millennium. Our procedures have to follow the regulation and this one does not allow us to monitor the ceiling. To make up rules without having CARS support opens the corporation up to risk.

Our involvement in this is to follow our responsibilities for situational awareness and to provide and request traffic updates frequently when we are aware that pilots are operating with limited ceilings. I am confident that the FSS are skilled and trained to perform this task consistently.

I thank you for your great perspective. It is apparent you were well researched and also concerned about the impact of this change. Since you wrote to me directly I will not cc my reply, but feel free to share my reply with anyone appropriate.
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aviatrixfss
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Re: Special VFR

Post by aviatrixfss »

In my previous post, all after "banging your head against the wall" was actually an answer to my first email. Hope I didn't confuse anybody.
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Jonathan
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Re: Special VFR

Post by Jonathan »

Thanks a lot for posting that exchange. It answers most of my questions, even though I disagree with some elements. It is indeed the responsability of the pilot to request SVFR and we are not supposed to tell him that he needs it. That makes sense to me. Actually I never understood why we had to tell the pilot that SVFR was required because I am myself a pilot and I know that pilots have to ask for it. ATS would not tell the pilot about that option. We can't ask a pilot to cancel IFR nor ask him to depart VFR (IFR flight plan). Same thing for SVFR.
Because ceiling/cloud requirements are based on flight visibility we can’t tell him that SVFR is required.
So.... how we have to think now is that because ceiling separation is based on pilot's observation and ceiling could vary depending on where you are inside the zone, we cannot tell him that SVFR is needed based on our reported ceiling. However, as clearly specified in CARs, required visibility for remaining VFR is the one we report, so then we can tell him SVFR is required when we are calling <3SM.

Why do we still have to tell the pilot that SVFR is required when ground visibility is lower then 3SM? Shouldn't it be his responsability to request SVFR?

Now, to come back to ceiling being higher at some places, there is that part of the flight where he will be close to the airport, or like you mentionned, transiting the zone overhead the airport, and he would HAVE to request SVFR. I guess it is still the responsability of the pilot to request SVFR and if he doesn't, he would be flying against the rules... ??

The thing is, multiple times, I had pilots (including professional pilots) departing the airport with ceiling below 1000ft and they told me they were able to remain VFR after I asked. They also never requested SVFR even after their "departure phase of flight". I can't believe ceiling was always higher outside the airport so they were able to remain VFR? How could they know for sure that ceiling was higher outside the airport? I have my doubts here.
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Re: Special VFR

Post by Bushav8er »

It seems to me that one of the problems with understanding VFR/SVFR is that some people don't know the airspace they are flying in or towards; no tower so not a 'control zone' therefore 3 mi & clear of cloud - wrong. And airway understanding seems to be worse. I had one pilot ( a recent ATPL 'grad') tell me you needed a clearance to be on or crossing an airway! (and I mean below 12.5/18T)
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Re: Special VFR

Post by Old Dog Flying »

It has been my impression as a controller and a pilot that VFR is 1000 and 3...Period...in a control zone. S/VFR is anything less than those limits in a control zone and as a very long in the tooth controller, if there is an aircraft on an IFR approach when the weather within the zone is less than VFR any inbound aircraft requiring SVFR must remain outside the zone and well clear of the approach area until the IFR has landed!

With a 600' ceiling within the zone the inbound must request SVFR but many times a controller has to remind the inbound pilot that the weather is below VFR, and only SVFR and IFR movements will be approved.

All of the above may be BS since I retired but the CARs still read the same and until NC dictates their interpretation of the regs I'll follow TCs CARs
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Re: Special VFR

Post by GilletteNorth »

A ceiling is defined as the lesser of:
(a) the height above ground of the base of the lowest layer aloft, at which the summation opacity is 6/10 or more of the whole sky.
(b) the vertical visibility in a surface-based layer which completely obscured the whole sky.

Addressing the first criteria for a ceiling: There are times when a layer aloft comprises 6/10 or more of a summation opacity (based on 10/10 not the metar octas of 8/8) but the cloud layers are not directly overhead the airport when the observer is taking the weather observation. So you may have a situation in which a ceiling is reported below 1000 ft within the control zone and yet a pilot can depart or land with 'clear sky' above him. A pilot may fly thru the control zone in an area where there are breaks in cloud so that he is easily able to maintain 500 ft above ground and 500 ft clear of cloud and again not need SVFR clearance. I believe these are examples of possible situations the new rules are trying to address to allow pilots to fly without having to request SVFR. A ceiling does not always mean that the entire sky is covered. However, if the cloud is below 1000 FT within the control zone and a pilot cannot maintain 500 ft above ground AND 500 ft clear of cloud he/she MUST request SVFR. However, a controller or FSS will not know whether the pilot needs SVFR clearance with regards to ceiling until the pilot advises. It's 'on your honor' rules here. How safe do you want to be?
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Last edited by GilletteNorth on Fri Oct 23, 2009 9:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Having a standard that pilots lose their licence after making a mistake despite doing no harm to aircraft or passengers means soon you needn't worry about a pilot surplus or pilots offering to fly for free. Where do you get your experience from?
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Re: Special VFR

Post by poke-her player »

except when taking off or landing, the distance of the aircraft from the surface is not less than 500 feet.
if your not taking off or landing stay out of controlled airspace.
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Re: Special VFR

Post by aviatrixfss »

When the medevac is on the approach and the little cessna with the low time pilot is bombing around at 400ft just below the cloud with 3 miles vis, I'll be waiting for the explosion. I was told that traffic separation should keep them apart, but with only DF equipment and the pilot's word for his distance (and around here they never get it right), I'm not sure that will work. I just hope the little guy has a transponder and the medevac has TCAS because when he breaks out of cloud there will be no time react.
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Re: Special VFR

Post by Jonathan »

aviatrixfss wrote:I just hope the little guy has a transponder and the medevac has TCAS because when he breaks out of cloud there will be no time react.
And I am sure you can feel IFR pilots not being confortable when they know there is a VFR guy just below the ceiling. It would be even more stressful in IFR conditions. It happened to me a few times.
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Re: Special VFR

Post by AMM »

GilletteNorth wrote:A ceiling is defined as the lesser of:
(a) the height above ground of the base of the lowest layer aloft, at which the summation opacity is 6/10 or more of the whole sky.
(b) the vertical visibility in a surface-based layer which completely obscured the whole sky.
Where did you read this? On a separate thread people are saying its 5/8 or more (inclusive). Its close, but I've never seen cloud layers described in tenths. Just curious, is there another standard out there?
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Jonathan
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Re: Special VFR

Post by Jonathan »

AMM wrote:Where did you read this? On a separate thread people are saying its 5/8 or more (inclusive). Its close, but I've never seen cloud layers described in tenths. Just curious, is there another standard out there?
When coding clouds for Environment Canada, we use /10 and they are automatically converted in /8 in the METAR format.
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Re: Special VFR

Post by AMM »

Interesting. Are there other categories, aside from few, scattered, broken, and overcast?
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aviatrixfss
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Re: Special VFR

Post by aviatrixfss »

Jonathan wrote:
aviatrixfss wrote:I just hope the little guy has a transponder and the medevac has TCAS because when he breaks out of cloud there will be no time react.
And I am sure you can feel IFR pilots not being confortable when they know there is a VFR guy just below the ceiling. It would be even more stressful in IFR conditions. It happened to me a few times.
As far as I'm concerned, 400ft and 3sm IS IFR conditions!
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