If the Aussies had the IMCR, they wouldn't need to consider the absurd chocolate teapot rating either!
You're right. It's not just Europe - it must be that the Aussies, and all the other 100 ICAO countries (or whatever the number is) except the UK are chocolate teapot lunatics for not having the IMCr. Even if you believe this, you must see why outside the UK it's perceived as a ridiculous, laughable position.
That is no justification
You are right. It's not a justification. There's nothing to justify. It's a factual outcome of the FCL008 process, the best sub-IR qualification the group could agree on was the EIR. No-one is telling you that it's better than the IMCr
for the UK or a replacement for it if the IMCr can be saved. Go and save the IMCr, as I said.
Recently AOPA's General Aviation requested readers to respond with their opinions about the idea.
I don't need to. I can guess. I can also guess if you asked AOPA members whether we should scrap all the EASA regs and just cut and paste everything from the FAA, they'd prefer that. I would. But it's a hopeless cause. Just like getting EASA to accept the IMCr across Europe.
The point of the FCL008 proposal is
a) that it's something European pilots might want as better than nothing - because they don't have an IMCr to save (and forgive me if it comes as a surprise that FCL008 had to consider the interests of non-UK pilots too)
b) that it's something that UK pilots might want, as better than nothing, if the IMCr can't be saved.
I just don't understand your hostility. I can understand why you might prefer the IMCr, or even strongly prefer it. But your remarks about lunacy and chocolate teapots are just ranting.
One thing I do like about the European attitude is the airspace issue. We accept the IMCr in the UK because we accept that vast swathes of low level airspace like the London TMA and the CI zone should be Class A and that all airways should be Class A - totally barred to VFR traffic and non-IR holders. This would be considered chocolate teapot lunacy almost everywhere else in the world. The very fact that a light aircraft might want to fly in an airway is so extraordinary to you that you castigate it as "playing airliners". This is a uniquely parochial UK perspective and I am very glad it prevails in few other places. It would be bafflingly lunatic to most other countries. That's, in part, why our IMCr is so silly to them.
Enroute IFR is much easier to train for than instrument departures, arrivals, holds and approaches. Ask any IR candidate how much they struggle with the "flying along the airway" part of the IR. Yet we have a qualification which is sub-IR that permits all the difficult parts of the IR and not the easy ones. This, anywhere other than the UK, is chocolate teapot lunacy. We accept it because we accept the default undertone in the UK that the sky belongs to NATS and the airlines and they can keep inconvenient users out - because there can be no other reason for the prevalence of Class A. EASA does not accept this kind of "user segregation by airspace" and I am glad they don't.
brgds
421C