For the avoidance of doubt, here is the full text of the article in General Aviation magazine referred to above.
The battle to save the IMC rating has entered a new phase, with the EASA working group charged with examining the issue having dodged its responsibilities while seeking to hammer another nail in the rating’s coffin. Despite its terms of reference the group, called FCL-008, has wound up without addressing the issue of the IMC rating and now believes it to be a dead duck. AOPA maintains the rating is a lifesaving qualification which is in large measure responsible for the UK’s excellent GA safety record, despite Britain’s notoriously changeable weather, and must be preserved.
AOPA has arranged an urgent meeting with EASA’s Deputy Head of Rulemaking Eric Sivel on December 2nd to ensure there are no further misconceptions about the rating, and has begun a programme of lobbying in Europe and the UK to support its retention. In particular, it is pointing out how FCL-008 failed in the task it was set, and is asking EASA and the CAA to clear away the confusion that surrounds the issue of whether a European country can create a one-state rating and attach it to an EASA licence, which would allow the CAA to maintain the IMC rating in the UK. EASA personnel have given conflicting advice on this, and the CAA is equivocal, but it’s become too important to allow such fudging.
Some 25,000 IMC ratings have been achieved, and 23,000 IMC holders still had valid medicals as of 2008. The CAA says that in 27 years, only one IMC rating holder has been killed in actual IMC. AOPA has received unqualified support for its campaign to save the IMC rating from the British Air Line Pilots Association, the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators, the RAF Flying Clubs Association and other organisations, but non-UK delegates at FCL-008 have gained the impression that Britain does not care about it because the IMC rating has been misleadingly portrayed to them.
The Europeans have mistakenly gained the impression that the IMC rating is equivalent to an Instrument Rating with one fifth of the training, that few people in the UK support it, and 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 – a travesty of what the IMC rating seeks to do.
FCL-008’s terms of reference were headed ‘Qualifications for Flying in Instrument Meteorological Conditions’ and included under section 3, Objectives: ‘Review the requirements of the UK IMC rating and other national qualifications for flying in IMC and consider whether there is a need to develop an additional European rating to fly in IMC with less training, but also with limited privileges.’
However, in a letter seeking explaining his position to AOPA, delegate Jim Thorpe of Europe Air Sports claimed it was never tasked to look at the IMC rating. “The terms of reference of FCL 008 have always been public,” wrote Mr Thorpe, chairman of PPL-IR. “They might be summarised as proposing a more practical and accessible system for private pilots to fly IFR in Europe. While they are informed by the UK IMC experience it was never within the group’s remit to consider the IMC within the UK.” This runs directly counter to the stated understanding of Eric Sivel, EASA’s Deputy Head of Rulemaking, who told IAOPA in an open meeting in October that FCL-008 had been tasked to look at the IMC rating situation and the proposal for a simplified IR, and if it did not produce a workable solution to the IMC problem, then it had failed in its purpose.
In his letter, Mr Thorpe goes on to make a number of assertions about the IMC rating which, while highly dubious, have become the accepted view at FCL-008.
*“the IMC rating essentially offers the same privileges as an IR on the basis of 20% of the training.”
*“the position where its privileges are essentially the same as a full IR but the CAA has consistently advised pilots not to use the privileges they have themselves granted is ludicrous”
*“most of the arguments in (the IMC rating’s) favour, such as its role in enhancing safety and the unique nature of UK weather cannot be credibly substantiated by the facts.”
Antipathy
The background to the setting up of the FCL-008 Working Group is worth reviewing. Those invited to take part were Morten Keller of the Danish CAA, Mike Dobson of the UK CAA, Mathieu Burgers of the Netherlands CAA, Raimund Neuhold of an association called IAAPS, Jean-Benoit Toulouse of the European Cockpit Association, Jim Thorpe of Europe Air Sports (and PPL-IR) Andrew Miller of Europe Air Sports (and British Gliding Association) Pierre Podeur of Europe Air Sports, and Dr Michael Erb of AOPA Germany. The secretary was Matthias Borgmeier of EASA.
AOPA UK was not informed until after the places had been filled. Before FCL-008’s first meeting, Mr Thorpe asked for a meeting with Martin Robinson of AOPA UK to make sure he did not object to Europe Air Sports, an umbrella group of aviation organisations, having so many representatives on FCL-008 while AOPA UK had none and IAOPA only one. At that meeting he gave no indication of any antipathy to the IMC rating. Martin Robinson told him AOPA UK would not object to the number of Europe Air Sports people on the group (which would have been a fruitless exercise anyway), but reminded him that the IMC rating was vital to the UK and there should be no move to undermine it. AOPA UK, he added, was not seeking to foist the IMC rating on the rest of Europe, as some had claimed, but it was extremely concerned to retain it, or else adopt a rating with almost identical privileges, in Britain.
In the event, the only person to try to get a serious discussion of the IMC rating going was Dr Michael Erb of AOPA Germany who, briefed by AOPA UK, tried to have the matter reopened on several occasions. He got no support from the UK delegates, and 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.
Mr Thorpe maintains that despite the fact that AOPA UK did not have a seat on FCL-008, responsibility for supporting the IMC rating fell solely to AOPA and was nothing to do with him. In his letter he says. “From the start it has been AOPA’s responsibility to lobby for the retention of the IMC.” But where else was the rating officially under discussion?
He goes on to attack the IMC rating in uncompromising terms. “I believe that most of the arguments in its favour such as its role in enhancing safety and the unique nature of UK weather cannot be credibly substantiated by the facts. Nevertheless pilots and flying schools like the rating and it can equally be said that negative impacts are also anecdotal. The position where its privileges are essentially the same as a full IR but the CAA has consistently advised pilots not to use the privileges they have themselves granted is ludicrous. It is in the great British tradition of daft compromises. It has been cobbled together over time ending with something that no one would ever have designed from first principals (sic) but which somehow works.”
Prejudice
Martin Robinson says: “The idea that the privileges of the IMC rating are essentially the same as those of the IR is so wide of the mark that IMC rating holders must be aghast. Many of those things that have been presented to FCL-008 as ‘facts’ are nothing more than prejudices masquerading as truth; there’s been no research, no intellectual rigour, nothing more than assumption piled on presumption, which would be comical if it wasn’t for the fact that consigning the IMC rating to history would put pilots in danger. It cannot be allowed to happen.
“When Mr Thorpe says claims that the IMC rating improves safety ‘are not supported by the facts’, what facts is he talking about? If he would like to meet some pilots who owe their lives to the rating, I can provide them. The purpose of the IMC rating, to save pilots who inadvertently fly into IMC by helping them keep control of their aircraft and returning them safely to the ground, has been utterly misrepresented to FCL-008 and to Europe.
“The notion that no-one in Europe supports the IMC rating is also misplaced. I believe it stems from German opposition to the Instrument Weather Rating proposed under the JAA, and has become a truism. Many NAAs and pilot groups around Europe would welcome an IMC equivalent – they’ve simply never been asked.
“Furthermore, given that under EC airspace proposals it would be possible for states to decide whether an IMC rating was useable in their own airspace, it seems that FCL-008’s decision to dismiss it out of hand is particularly unfortunate. It would have been far better to present the truth and try to change some minds. Some opposition to the IMC rating was expected, but we didn’t expect to be hung out to dry by our own side.
“This issue needs to be put in context. EASA has publicly stated its commitment to banish the N-register from Europe, and one of the major reasons so many people fly N-reg aircraft on FAA licences is that the FAA IR is far more sensible and achievable than the European equivalent. Change needs to come in pursuit of EASA’s stated aim. At the same time, noisy opposition to the IMC rating has come from the European Cockpit Association and some NAAs. It would have been an act of political courage for EASA to go against it – far better to create a Working Group that would kill off the rating and carry the can, then EASA could shrug its shoulders and say it did its best.
“The question now is exactly how to save the IMC rating. Our first step is to sit down with Eric Sivel early in December to clear up any misconceptions he may have about the UK position on the rating and to point up the fact that FCL-008 has not done its job. At the same time, AOPA is working at the European Parliament and the European Commission to marshal support for the rating, and we have already had positive responses from the most senior figures in the EC’s transport department and a number of MEPs. In particular, the CAA needs to stand up and be counted. It’s no use trying to be all things to all men – that’s one of EASA’s problems. Were it not for EASA, the CAA would not be sitting down and discussing the need to kill the IMC rating – why do they acquiesce to this? We need an unqualified expression of support from the CAA, and I would also like to ask Europe Air Sports whether their delegate actually speaks for them.
“The FCL-008 proposals will be transformed by EASA into a Notice of Proposed Amendment, at which point consultation will be invited and we will be ready. AOPA’s postbag in support of the IMC rating is bigger than any it has had before, and at the correct time we will mobilise that support in a targeted letter-writing campaign. I believe that despite the obstacles it is possible to reverse the situation and I will expend any effort to do so.”