summary of AOPA article in December magazine:
EASA recently held a working group meeting to determine,
inter alia, the future of the IMC rating. The UK was represented by a Mr Jim Thorpe of Europe Air Sports and Deputy Chairman of PPL/IR Europe
[Not true. Jim was not a "UK representative". He was there as a European representative, with a specialised knowledge of IR, not IMCr matters. The IR was amongst the topics on FCL008's mandate in case this point has been missed by anyone....]
Despite there being 23,000 current holders of the IMCR, Mr Thorpe has managed to convey to his European colleagues that there is no support for the rating in the UK
[Not true. The article says that but it is not a quote and I don't believe it. How could anyone on FCL008 or in EASA not be aware that IMCr holders passionately support their rating?]
The Europeans have mistakenly gained the impression that the IMCR is equivalent to an IR with just one fifth of the training . . . . and that we can all trolley around up there in the airways with their commercial traffic. No wonder they are so opposed to it with this blatently misleading briefing that has been coming from certain quarters
[Not true. This was not a "briefing" to FCL008 and if anyone had attempted a factually misleading briefing I have no doubt IAOPA's representative would have corrected it](possibly attached to the entirely independent PPL/IR org who of course have no agenda of their own to peddle
)
[instead of insinuating with smileys, why not state what you believe this "agenda" to be]
Thorpe has told them that British pilots
"will prefer a proposed En Route Instrument Rating for which a course of theoretical exams must be passed before the holder is allowed to fly in the cruise in IMC, with no approach and landing training or privileges" (no doubt this silly concept was dreamt up by a certain Mr J Thorpe - £25 explanatory manual available from all good bookshops)
[Not true. Neither Jim nor anyone else has claimed the EIR is prefered]
At the meeting, the only person who tried to raise the UK GA's overwhelming support for the IMCR was Dr Michael Erb of AOPA Germany but he received no support from the UK delegates and so "it was decided to give the IMC rating no further consideration. Dr Erb felt unable to press the issue of a UK rating further in the face of opposition from UK delegates"
[Personally I believe this to be a misrepresentation]
Sadly the meeting had been nobbled so as to exclude AOPA UK - all our seats were filled by Thorpe and his cronies. [
Not true. Whose seats are "our" seats? AOPA was represented through IAOPA by Michael Erb. There were other UK nationals on FCL008 other than Jim. BTW who are Jim Thorpe's cronies? This is conspiracy nutter stuff. The composition of FCL008 was published publicly last year.]
Fortunately, the Germans seem to have
a full measure of integrity not only demonstrated by Dr Erb, but also the Deputy Head of Rulemaking, Mr Eric Sivel, who was obviously surprised by the cleverly orchestrated hatchet job on the IMCR by the UK delegation . . .. . . . . and has agreed to meet urgently with AOPA UK "to ensure there are no further misconceptions about the UK rating".
Frankly I think current members of PPL/IR Org and Europe Air Sports should urgently change their management and to recruit exclusively Germans who seem to have adopted en masse
our British sense of fair play. We, on the other hand, seem to have turned into a bunch of weasels . .. . .. . ..
.[I underlined 'full measure of integrity' and 'British sense of fair play' as an ironic reference to how utterly lacking these were in the misrepresentations peppered through the AOPA article and amplified on this thread.]