Timothy,
Thanks for the link. Very illuminating to hear first hand what Jim Thorpe actually thinks, rather than hearsay.
It does seem incredible that a representitive of PPL/IR, a minority interest organisation (328 british members), who is so brazenly hostile to the future of a rating which has served uk pilots so well, can pop up in such an important commitee and purport to represent the interests of British IMCR holders. As a member of AOPA, I am disappointed by their choice of representitive for this commitee and am curious as to why the opinion of the membership was not consulted at an early stage?
I particularly enjoyed Mr. Thorpes comments about how the unique european ratings were all so understandable (mountain ratings, et al) and how there could be no logical argument for the IMC on the grounds of there being unique and changeable weather patterns in the UK as a result of our maritime climate and being a small northern european island, as the weather in germany and sweden is just the same. I shall leave it to some of the professional met folk on this forum to explain why this point of view is incorrect - suffice to say that I think that Mr. Thorpe needs to re-sit his met exams...
I expect that next he'll be telling us that the Brevet de Bas is a terrific idea, and that VFR-on-top privilage allowed to a French vfr PPL is great because in europe, there will always be a hole in the cloud at the end of the journey to descend through.
The net result of this promises to be that IMCR holders will have a useful rating taken away and, if we're good little boys, we may be allowed to sit the full IR theoretical knowledge exams, submit to retraining and re-sit a flight test in order to gain an EIR - which will be markedly inferior and less useful than the rating we already enjoy.
I predict that two things will happen as a result of this;
1. Yet another group of pilots and aircraft from the european register to the American register
2. That pilots will simply fly IFR without any rating, in the absence of an attainable, useful, european rating and people will be die as a result.
What a shame.