IMC rating in theUK?

[frog_ATC]

Maybe Zorst is a bit rude... in fact very rude, that's true :-)
He could maybe have expressed himself in another way.

But I must admit that I do not appreciate that UK IMC at all, and I hope they will stop it as soon as possible.


I know most of you will scream!!!! when they will read those lines, but that's my feeling.


Let's introduce myself first : my first job is Air Traffic Controller, radar and non-radar approach qualifications, ATC instructor and examiner in France.

I'm also a pilot, and an instructor (JAR instructor and examiner, and FAA instrument instructor).

As an ATC, I very often have these G-Reg IMC ratings in my controlled area, 100% IMC, VFR status. I've been ATC on 2 different airports, and this was always the same problem : these damned G-Reg IMC ratings, playing the "IR pilot", without qualification, but also, without the status, without the flight plan, and... without the skills.

Yes, outside UK.
Yes, very often.

One of these foggy and cloudy days, a G-reg VFR crossing through my (controlled!) TMA, and I wondered how this was possible with that awful weather, but I already knew deep inside.
So after a while I asked :

- G-XXXX, say conditions ?
- G-XXXX, we are IMC.
- G-XXXX, confirm you are VFR ?
- G-XXXX affirm.
- G-XXXX confirm you are VFR and IMC ??
- G-XXXX affirm.

... Pilots behaving that way have absolutely no respect, either for the ATC, either for the country they are flying through and its regulation. What a great image of UK !

Sometimes they tell you they are IMC, sometimes they don't.
Not only are they outlaw, but this is something completely impossible to handle in a normal traffic for the ATC.

When you tell them they should maintain VMC, they answer "I'm IMC rated".
I do not care your IMC rating, dummy, you are in France and I want you to maintain VMC !!

My second activity, quite time consuming I must say, is flight instructor, and more especially, FAA Instrument instructor.

I sometimes have some IMC rated asking me "I hold an IMC rating, I'm nearly ready for the FAA IR checkride". And they want to fly the minimum as minimum as minimum.

I'm sure there are some talented IMC rated pilots, but I must say that some of those I evaluated had a very poor level of basic IMC flying.

And it took time to train some of them because they thought they "already knew" ! They may have some very bad habits we have to erase to make them safe.
Their flying method is often not structured enough and they try to "reinvent" everything, or consider many things as "details" which are not important... but every detail is important when you are in the soup.

Flying IMC is not only entering clouds and shaking controls, it is more than that, it is a pilot attitude, decision making, understanding of what's happening with the ATC, the traffic, the airplane, the weather.


And as a pilot, I had some unhappy experiences when flying in the same sky...

So did my husband, that "met" one of these "half-VFR half-IFR" two months ago crossing a beacon completely illegaly, while he was same position same altitude, shooting an IFR approach...

When you have seen, in a fraction of second, another airplane passing by below your wheels in complete IMC soup, so nearby that you could see the head of the pilot (this was a cirrus, with one onboard), I can tell you that you really nearly collided and there would have been nothing you could do against that.
Only by chance, you did not "kiss" over that beacon.

They were three onboard, and I remember that 15 minutes after landing the students were still shaking. (of course => AIRPROX)


So, in the name of all ATC outside UK, and in the name of myself as a pilot, I hope they will stop this damned IMC rating, that makes some pilots think they are what they are not.


You cannot be "half trained". Even with the best weather briefing in the world, you can be trapped in clouds more deeply than expected, trapped in weather you did not expected that way. Then you will need a full experience, a full qualification, to sort this out.


Then we are back to the problem: the European Instrument Rating was designed only for airline pilots.
It is too complicated, too expensive, the ground school is completely useless for a private pilot.

THAT IS TRUE.

And that's the main problem.

We need a european Instrument rating in the same spirit as the FAA one. That would be great...

What is the difference between a JAA and a FAA IR, once you are rated ?
None !
You'll fly in the same sky, same conditions, same everything, and you will need the same skills.
Only the way to get it which is different... You learn only what you need.

Despite I had some JAA IR flight experience, I stopped waiting for that marvelous "improved JAA IR" and switched to the FAA one, and I really appreciate now the FAA system with those safety seminars, the fact that they insist on decision making and human factors...
But I still hope they will create a similar IR in Europe, that would be great for the GA safety.

Fly safe,

The ATC frog

PS : sorry, English is not my native langage