Originally Posted by
DARKMAIZE
The guys down at Barwon Heads can allegedly do NVFR and IR also (I was originally going to do NVFR there, but it didn't work out, and I instead changed to do IFR at Interair - regarding excess costs at essendon, I understand there are no night circuits allowed at essendon, so they do their training away from Essendon). When you look at the minimum numbers (your efforts may vary):
NVFR: 10hrs aircraft time.
PIFR: 10hrs sim + 10hrs aircraft (Extra is required if you get a night rating at same time, but I don't know the specifics)
IFR: 20hrs sim + 20hrs aircraft (plus a few hours night circuits)
From where I was sitting, choosing to do the IREX and get a SEIR appears the cheapest thing Ive decided to do in a plane in terms of bang for buck. Of course, disadvantage is you need to pass an exam, where nvfr has no exam from my memory.
Best of luck.
Yeah its all a bit confusing which ways to go.
I would maybe just take a stab at the IR on first go, but the thing is I don't have 50 hours PIC X-country yet - will need to hour build that which will take some time and $
I thought maybe having a NVFR/PIFR will help in that regard towards X-country hour buildling.