Originally Posted by
Andrea Piva
good morning,
thank you very much for all the information.
Do you maybe now if in order to start the conversion a flight review is needed. And also if i am not ifr current, since my last flight in usa was 2 years ago, do i need an instrument proficiency check? Because that would mean that i should go back to the states and do both with an FAA instructor. And i think would be senseless since under the conversion training i won’t log any flight time under PIC.
thank you very much in advance
First of all, this post was created for the CB-IR pathway (Competence-Based Instrument Rating) which allows to add unrestricted instrument rating to the EASA license. I can's say anything about validation or conversion by reciprocal agreement - probably that way will be easier, but I just don't have that experience. Under this path, according to the Part-FCL, in any case you must have at least 40 instrument hours and at least 25 dual received hours. You can credit your prior FAA experience towards your EASA IR, but only up to 30 hours. And you can credit up to 15 hours of other instrument experience.
Flight review before the course is legally not required, but I am almost sure that the school will ask for it just to understand how much additional training you need, so it will be some sort of internal assessment. Flight review after the course is required, and it is basically a normal IFR checkride with the EASA examiner.
Usually the school doing the process is aware of the details, so they will probably tell you what to do. The chief instructor signs you off for a checkride after the course, so he/she should verify your records anyway. Only a few schools provide this kind of training since it's much easier and profitable to fly the complete IR course with them, so if I were you I'd try to firstly figure out who can do it.
In any case you need at least 10 hours in the ATO. The further steps depend on your experience.
First, ask your CAA (better in writing!) if they can credit your FAA dual instrument instruction towards 25 required dual hours (usually they do, but different countries can have different understanding of Part-FCL). More specific it's Part-FCL Appendix 6, Aa. 6(a)(iv). If they don't, you need additional 15 hours with the EASA FI. So that either way you should have 25 logged dual received hours (either 10 EASA + 15 FAA or 25 EASA).
Then you need 15 PIC IFR hours, and these hours must be solo (logged FAA PIC dual received hours do not count according to the EASA rules). If you don't have them, you either need 15 more hours with the EASA FI (since you cannot fly solo) or somehow do your IPC, find the N-reg and fly PIC IFR hours.
So usually you need just 10 hours in the ATO and a checkride. In the worst case (no PIC hours, the CAA do not credit FAA dual hours) you need the entire 40-hours IFR course, so that CB-IR does not make sense. It does not matter whether your FAA IR is current, you credit your experience, not converting your rating under this path.
And, finally, a small remark about the PIC time. I may be wrong, but I don't know which CAA considers FAA PIC dual received hours as legal PIC. When they review your logbook for adding/updating a rating and see something in 'dual' column, they do not consider this time as PIC regardless how you flew it (at least it's true for the Czech CAA). There is only one PIC in an airplane according to the EASA rules. I have a separate column in my logbook for acting as PIC (EASA rules) and FAA-logged PIC hours, but, again, better to consult with the CAA.
Good luck with that
