If I am operating in Class Bravo airspace IFR, and I cancel IFR, do I retain my clearance to be in the Bravo airspace? (Assuming, of course, I am in compliance with FAR 91.155).

If not, how should I phrase my request to cancel IFR, contingent on having a VFR Class Bravo clearance?

 

If you're outside the Bravo when you cancel, I doubt that you are cleared automatically. If you are in the Bravo airspace when ATC accepted your cancellation, it would be hard for ATC to claim that you were required to disappear into non-Bravo airspace within a second (although with the FAA you never know).

But that said, there's no guarantee that even if you are ok when you cancel, ATC won't immediately tell you to get out. If you really want to stay within the Bravo and for some reason you really want to cancel IFR, your best bet is to ask in advance.

"If I cancel IFR, can you give me a Bravo clearance to...?" (not every request has standard phraseology)

 

Keep in mind that you DO NOT need to hear the words "Clear into class B". No where in the regs/AIM does it say you need to hear those words to enter the airspace. If you receive a heading/altitude assignment, this is your clearance into class B. Too often I keep hearing on the radio "Am I clear into class B???" when they clearly received one in the first place.

 

I respectfully disagree. While it doesn't say you need to hear the words, you do need an ATC clearance (AIM 3-2-3). For class C and D, you need 2 way radio communications (AIM 3-2-4). The AIM does go into great detail about what constitutes two way radio communication, and a heading/altitude assignment with the airplanes callsign falls under the two way communication.

If a heading/altitude/callsign readout is considered 2 way communications, and an ATC clearance is a step above establishing 2 way communications, it is reasonable to expect to hear "Cleared into the Bravo airspace."

You only have to worry about it while VFR anyway, and how often do you go into class B airports VFR? As I tell my students- it's better to get yelled at from ATC for double checking, than it is to get yelled at by the FAA for NOT double checking.

 

You need to review the definition and concept of an ATC clearance. This is what a lot of of student pilots are taught by their instructors. This wrong interpretation has been passed on to pilots over and over. (Don't mean to throw you under the bus) Why? Because a lot of pilots can't tell the difference between an ATC clearance and two way radio communication. So to be on the safe side, flight instructors tell their student to ask and hear the words "Clear into Class B". This is why ATC yells at pilots when they received a heading and altitude assignment and still ask if they are clear into class B!!! And yes, I do enter in class B ALL THE TIME without asking or hearing "Clear into class B". What is the difference? In most case I do get a more professional and expeditious service from ATC because they know who they are dealing with.

This being said, you are RIGHT also. If ATC doesn't care where you are going and just wants you to proceed VFR, this is not in this case an ATC clearance. So you need to hear the words "Clear into Class B or something similar to that effect".

Let me ask you. If you received a heading and altitude assignment and then the radio becomes cluttered. Are you going to deviate from this "ATC clearance" because you didn't hear "Clear into Class B" and you are just about to enter class B? I hope not. And this is exactly what may happen to your students - an FAR violation. You think you do them a favor and this might bite them in the a$% later on. Let me ask you another question, you are departing from an uncontrolled airport for an IFR-IMC flight which requires you to obtain a clearance before entering controlled airspace, do you hear in any of that "Clear into class E"? I bet you never did in a million.

 

No, but you did hear "Cleared to" when you receive your IFR clearance. That's your clearance into the controlled airspace under IFR.

I understand there is no specific regulation that required you to hear the words "cleared to" prior to operating in Class B airspace VFR. But how do you know you that you do in fact have a clearance without hearing "cleared though the Class B airspace"? What is your regulatory guidance that receiving a vector constitues a clearance?

 

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. And at least down here where I live, more often than not the answer to "Am I cleared through the Bravo" is as close to "Hell no" as a controller can get and still continue to be a controller—even if he's given you an altitude and a heading. For your reference, 14 CFR 91.131 reads:
All operations within Class B airspace, whether IFR or VFR, MUST be conducted under an ATC clearance (IFR, you'll have one, and you're good with the "Cleared to blah blah", VFR, you'll need to get one). You are not allowed to transit Bravo until you hear the magic words "Cleared through the Bravo airspace" or *similar*. C and D are "Prior radio contact", meaning ATC has called you by name. Completely different standard of contact.

 

If I'm reading it correctly, bubi352 is not diputing that a clearance is required to operate in Class B airspace, but is arguing that a vector from ATC that puts you into the airspace constitutes that clearance.

I'd sure want to see that in black and white somewhere before I relied on it in place of hearing "you are cleared."

 

Typically when I cancel IFR inside class B the controller will come back with "Cancellation received; cleared into bravo airspace fly heading XXX maintain XXXX feet. "

 

That's a clearance, which by happenstance contains two instructions. "Fly such and such" on its own is not a clearance: it's an instruction.