Originally Posted by yrvld
You can fly a PAR with a regular Instrument rating on your license. Not a problem, PAR is no different that a cat I ILS, even regarding minimums, usually. Can fly them commercially too, as long as the approach is published in your applicable co. route manual (OM-C, jepp charts, AIP, etc), of course.
…well, its not
quite that simple, actually … in the US, the approaches you are authorized to fly have to be specified in your Operations Specifications (Ops Specs - issued by the FAA), you have to have the appropriate reference materials (Jepp charts, etc.) on board, and you have to have been trained to fly the approaches you are authorized to fly. There have been US certificated operators, operating under part 121, who regularly flew PAR approaches – but the PAR was in their Ops Specs, they carried the appropriate charts, and they trained on PARs. These operators were authorized because they did quite a bit of military charter work into and out of military-only airfields where PARs were regularly used.