Some random comments:
I hoped they would modify the JAR IR, but they did not.
So now I believe the FAA IR is the key solution for JAR pilots, until they do something for us with a JAA IR.
Just listen to frequencies : more and more N-reg.
Very true.
This is the proof that EASA has completely failed.
No, EASA has not even got authorisation to take over JAA FCL (flight crew licensing). They are about to. They will be running FCL later in 2008.
It is JAA who has failed. The airline pilots, their unions, and the ex airline and ex air force people in the regulatory bodies tend to be very elitist and they made sure that within JAA everything got stuffed like a duck - to the tightest common denominator.
EASA's attitude to private IFR is refreshingly different. They want a sub-IR private IMC privilege throughout Europe. Of course it won't be the UK IMC Rating, but something designed in a modular manner should work. But EASA needs to get consensus too - just not the absolute tightest common denominator which made JAA block all progress.
Don't you want a real IR, more accessible, instead of this half-IMC thing ?
That's what you should fight for, with us, not for an IMC rating !
Why? Basic flight in IMC is no rocket science. UK's 35 year "experiment" proves it.
And we should also fight to improve the PPL training, and add more IMC stuff in it, to improve safety.
I would agree, but all those pilots who did a PPL just to fly basic types, or aerobatics, would not. They want the simplest possible VFR-only license. They make up the great majority of PPLs. And they jolly well make sure this "we don't want any instrument stuff" desire is transmitted through votes of their representative bodies at every committee vote.
And I am quite sure many of these "VFR-only" pilots do fly unofficial IFR anyway, all over Europe - just go to any GA aircraft show and look at the IFR equipped planes that are not certified for IFR. The equipment is clearly what the buyers want. If you are happy to fly illegal VFR then you have nothing to lose in the European GA-political scene (except maybe getting yourself killed, but with good equipment that is a lot less likely these days).
France and the rest of Europe likes to turn a blind eye to this kind of flying (of which only a small fraction will be done by Englishmen - the vast majority of GA pilots rarely if ever fly abroad, so most of it is done domestically by pilots with local knowledge) and this is also helping to keep the full IR very hard because everybody pretends that illegal VFR doesn't exist so there is no need to train people to fly in IMC.
The UK IMCR came about because in the 1960s it was legal for PPLs to fly in IMC, and some got killed, so the mandatory training was introduced. The IMCR recognises that some pilots would do this anyway and that it is better to give them a very accessible kind of basic but adequate instrument training.
Incidentally, there is some possibility of the "EASA IR" ground school being substantially reduced in the next year or two.
The IMCr does need revision to take into account the modern world (it was previously based primarily on ADF and VDF procedures) and nowadays it should be reasonably based on a wider 30 hour syllabus.
The IMCR usually takes 25hrs to do. The key issue however is that training should be
competence based. The FAA IR "needs" just 15hrs dual training! Yet the checkride is just as hard as the JAA one. There is no way to do the FAA IR in less than about 40-50hrs total instrument time - whether with an instructor or just one's own experience under IFR.