Andrew Sarangan ) wrote:

"Bill Gamelson" wrote in
om:

ATC can assign altitudes that are wrong for direction of flight.

This is true. The "East is least and West is best" only applies to
VFR flight. A good example is when I was flying East at 6000 and ATC
instructed me to climb to 7000. I was IFR at the time. I started
picking up ice at 7000 and requested "lower". ATC then cleared me
back down to 6000, not 5000 which they could have.




The hemispheric rule applies to IFR also, but only in uncontrolled airspace
(class G).

While perhaps your comment may be technically true, it's been my experience
flying IFR in the Northeast US that ATC very much wants IFR aircraft filing
altitudes that conform to the hemispheric rule.

If I tried to file a nonconforming altitude for the direction of flight
(which has occasionally happened by mistake), the CD controller always
corrected this oversight upon delivering my clearance.


--
Peter