I accept that these are the rules now - but can anybody substantiate the increase in flight safety gained by making professional pilots do I/Rs on MEPs/SEPs as well as their workaday aeroplanes?. I would have thought that if you fly in controlled airspace in all weathers you would be capable of working out what was practical and what wasn`t for a particular class of aircraft.
Before JAA you could fly for a living and keep your private privileges including I/R (and by inference night) valid by flying the appropriate group of aircraft once in thirteen months providing that that one flight included the handling of a simulated failure of a power unit. A twin revalidated single (+SLMG) privileges but not the other way round. - So a flight in a twin with an Efato + assymetric landing was enough to keep the whole thing legal. You kept on top of it by flying your 450-900 hrs (average jobs) a year and doing whatever checkouts you felt were prudent or demanded by someone hiring you an aircraft.
If we were crashing all over the place and generally being an embarassment before JAA it escaped my notice. The necessity for 2 or 3 instrument ratings, 90 day validities to land a pa-28 at night, leaving the circuit x times a month in a twin, etc, etc seems to me the most crass if not criminal upshot of JAR.
Edited for spelling. .GH
[ 23 February 2002: Message edited by: Gary Halliday ]</p>