Would anyone who has actually been there please care to comment on the difficulty or otherwise of getting a full JAR instrument rating?
It is quite simple and not the drama that many (who have never done one) make it out to be. All the comments about how hard it is if you are working in a full time job or are not a 24 year old airline wannabee are rubbish. I did the theory for both CPL and IR with CATS at Cranfield. They provided a good standard of materials and were completely flexible around ground school etc. I was the Group IT Director of a FTSE 100 company while doing the study commuting into London on the train. I used the hour in the morning and night on the commute to study and did a day of ground school on a Saturday with CATS before the exams. I passed all of the exams first time an average of mid 90% on the scores.
I did the flying trying split between 2 schools both based at Cranfield, both completely flexible to my needs. The fist was Taylor aviation with Bob Moore as my Instructor. A vastly experienced airline captain who knows his stuff inside out. Taylor sold up and so I moved next door to Bonus aviation to finish other half.
Once again, Bonus were a 1st rate organisation, they were completely flexible on training schedule and accommodate people at evenings and weekends. There is nothing difficult about the flight training and you have the option to do quite a bit in the sim. I did a multi engine IR and passed it in 5mins over the 55hr minima and did the whole thing in the aircraft. Bonus let you do a mix of sim, single and MEP to meet the hours if you are intent on keeping the price down.
Like all of these things if you sit and listen to the detractors who I bet none of them have actually done it you will believe it is the most difficult thing on earth. There are also many people who will always look to find a shortcut on a 100 mile straight road.....
Trust me it is not hard, even a monkey can do it.
In fact the perfect IR would be one where you are only required to pass a written exam (it is not rocket science and most is not applicable for the new generation of glass cockpit), cover a minimum flying syllabus with an instructor, then training as required to get you to a sufficient standard to pass the test, and an oral exam (sound familiar?).
Performance based training is the model that is being moved forward and was an inherent part of our original recommendations at the IRWG. Culturally it is a massive change for an industry slow to adopt new methods. But we are now finally starting to see a move in this direction. The new MPL is largely performance based.