"get you home rating"
"That use of the IMC scares the hell out of me with PPL's"
PLEASE don't start that silly argument again!!! The above statements are utter rubbish.
It's all down to currency and what sort of plane one can get one's hands on.
Somebody who has a PPL with an IMCR, owns a decent IFR aircraft and does say 100hrs a year is going to be a lot more current (and safe) doing instrument approaches than somebody who did their JAA ATPL a few years back, is now looking for an airline job, never flies in IMC, and just manages to dig out enough money to renew their IR on a sim or in a flight once a year.
The FAA is right to have their rolling currency requirement. JAA (or the CAA, with the IMCR) doesn't have this and one could have a debate on this, but this is NO justification for slagging off the IMCR.
The FAA IR is held and kept current by an awful lot of PPLs in the USA and elsewhere. The JAA IR, on the other hand, tends to exist in two camps: high-hour working commercial pilots, and very low-hour wannabe commercial pilots. The JAA *PPL*/IR population is almost insignificant.
So, due to the number of JAA IR holders who practically never fly in IMC (in that I include those who pass their time doing PPL training) I would suggest that an FAA IR-style rolling currency requirement for the JAA IR would be exceedingly unpopular!
After a year or two and a lot of flying, the min 15hr IMCR requirement v. the min 50hr JAA IR requirement becomes insignificant, especially when one considers one pilot could be flying a battered C172 with no kit and the other could be flying a new IFR tourer with everything. In fact, the typical UK-style Class G IFR flight (own navigation in IMC, no ATS service, etc) is more demanding than flying airways; in the latter one spends most of the time being radar vectored and the workload is minimal.
It's sad that most UK IMCR holders are unsuspecting people who were sold it by their school - another nice £3k for the school - without anybody telling them they can't do much with it, short of buying a (or a share in) £100,000 (min) plane. So it's a jolly good job these people didn't do the much more costly full IR because with that they would be in exactly the same useless position.
One can fly in IMC in something much cheaper, which is fair enough but in that case one is unable to safely fly to the full privileges of the IMCR. But again that's no different to having an IR.
The IMCR is a fantastic privilege which is regularly slagged off, but those doing this keep picking the wrong reasons.
FFF
The FAA IR training requirement can be done with any "authorised instructor"; the term is used but not defined in the FAR/AIM and has been variously interpreted. Some people, without any apparent basis, say this means any ICAO IR instructor. However people going to do the IR in Florida normally get any UK training accepted for this purpose. An FAA CFII is not required for any of it.
The requirement for an FAA CFII (or CFI if doing just the PPL) comes from the need to get signed off as ready for the checkride, by a CFII. Now, in practice no CFII will sign you off unless he knows you can fly! Together with the requirement to do the last 3 hrs in the 60 days before the checkride, this effectively (but not as a legal requirement) means that the last 3 hrs in the last 60 days need to be done with a CFII - who then signs you off.
But all the FAA logbook requirements (e.g. the 250nm x/c airways flight) can be done with a JAA instructor in a G-reg. This very usefully avoids the need to comply with the U.S. TSA requirements, because nobody needs to claim (at that stage) that that flight is towards the FAA IR. This way of doing it is handy for people who want to do most of their FAA IR training in the UK but (due to the problems in getting FAA examiners to come here) have to go to the USA for the checkride. Do all the training here, sit the written here (or LeBourget), then go to Florida for a week or two. Obviously you still have to reach the standard but if you have been instrument flying here, meet the FAA test standards here (a real CFII or somebody who knows the expectations helps a lot for that) plus a week or two out there, should be enough.
The requirement for a CFII to do all FAA IR training is routinely dished out by UK based FAA training outfits, for revenue generation.
Last edited by IO540; 23rd October 2005 at 17:28.