Pace
how many PPLs with IMCR could be classified as current on instrument approaches? very few have the money or regular IFR flights and approaches to be so.
What would you say is preferred :
1) An IMCR holder who is less than current but who is legal to land on an ILS
2) An IR holder whose IR lapsed a long time ago (because he can't afford his own plane) who dabbles in IFR here and there (because he can't do it overtly) and whose ability to fly the ILS is probably the same as the above IMCR holder
??
I got the IMCR in 2002 and got the IR in 2006, having been flying airways in Europe since 2005 with an instructor.
I don't see the difference in the end product - once the memory of the checkride (my FAA IR one was incredibly hard) fades away.
Basically, a pilot will be only as good as his currency, which in turn depends on
- funding
- a keen interest in aviation and going places
- funding
- spare time to fly
- funding
- spare time to fly (most people with the funding don't have a lot of spare time)
- a keen interest in aviation and going places
- aircraft ownership (more or less mandatory for going places)
- aircraft equipment and his comprehension of it
- his ability to make optimal use of cockpit automation (i.e. none of this "I have an autopilot but don't need it so I fly by hand" crap)
I have a CPL/IR but apart from chandelles and lazy eights (which were great fun), the IFR lost comms procedure, and one or two other snippets, I learnt nothing in the CPL or the IR that is relevant to real flying - over and above what I knew before doing them. Nearly all of the knowledge I use on real flights was learnt elsewhere - probably from other pilots, probably via the internet. I knew more about IFR, high altitude flight, oxygen, airways route planning, etc in 2005 than my IR instructor, and this was fairly evident...
I think that IFR is actually really easy. You have to know about strategy relative to aircraft mission capability and weather / icing etc. Somebody really dumb can learn to fly but they will fail in these more advanced areas. But IFR was hard, the whole earth would be covered in wreckage, which it isn't.
What you have to do is read the plates and fly them. If you fly them wrong, you will probably die. Nothing new there. If you drive on the wrong side of the road the same will probably happen.
I think the emotion about the IR being something "special" is the result of a deep realisation that IFR is really easy and almost anybody with a half decent brain and the ability to read a plate, who can fly headings and levels, and who can operate the aircraft technically, can do it and provided they don't make a c0ckup, they will be safe and correct. But if this knowledge was to get out of the IFR pilots' Masonic lodge, their professional status would collapse.
A lot of IMCR training is crap, but a great deal of PPL training is also crap. And don't I know it - I could tell a few stories myself about mad instructors. The initial IR test in the UK is done by CAA employees, but that isn't the case in the rest of the known universe so there is no evidence that this consistency in the very early stage has any long term safety benefit. The UK IR test is a very narrow airways flight exercise which AIUI any monkey who trained on those routes (which they all do of course) can fly. After a while, none of this means very much.
I have met crazy lapsed IR holders and crazy IMCR holders, and crazy PPLs. Some crazy CPLs too. After some passage of time, all these bits of paper mean sod-all. If I could pick up a JAA ATPL by finding that Mongolia will convert my FAA CPL/IR into a Mongolian ATPL and then Mongolia joins the EU and becomes JAR-FCL compliant, and it charged me Euro 3000 for it, I would do it right away. In the longer term, the pilot is only as good as his attitude, intelligence, and funding. The bit of paper just sets the privileges.
What I do think is a shame is the lack of operational detail training. The PPL is claimed to be a preparation for all kinds of flying but actually it leaves the graduate unable to really go anywhere. The IR is similar - it doesn't teach the operational details of flying especially in the European IFR system. But no training syllabus is going to ever address these things. After all, over here, they are only just getting their hands around GPS - 10+ years after it became the de facto sole nav method for IFR.