Originally Posted by
LTCTerry
I'm curious - what are "IFR hours?" Is that flight time on an IFR flight plan or actually in instrument conditions? There's a huge difference between 50 hours on IFR flight plans and 50 hours in the clouds; I have a lot more "flight plan hours" than "in the cloud hours." Probably true of most.
"IFR hours" in the most of the EASA world (according to part FCL) means flight hours under IFR regardless whether you fly in VMC, IMC or simulated IMC.
"Instrument hours" (as I know, there is no such thing for the EASA, but there is for FAA) means either IMC time ("actual instrument") or "with a view limiting device" ("simulated instrument"). To be pedantic, the definition is just "flying only by reference to the instruments", but everybody in the FAA world uses view limiting device since there is a solid proof that you did not use visual cues.
If you need just IFR hours for your EASA license, you can file IFR and fly in VMC, that's perfectly legal to log IFR time under those circumstances. I am not totally sure about UK (it seems they have their own vision of the EASA regulations), but for other member states which I know about (Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Netherlands) that's correct.