Pace
Have a good one, your co-pilot clearly cant be very attractive as you have been looking at the screen a fair bit.
Here is a thought that might keep you happy.
Leaving aside what may or may not happen in the UK, I think we all understand that the IMC rating sits uncomfortably in a system where there is no IFR in open FIR.
Where ever you place the IR pole, the IMC rating sits below the IR pole and yet if the IMC rating entitled the holder to operate in airways there is little to distinguish an IMC rating from an IR. If there is so little distinction between the two ratings then once must fail. Clearly it cannot be the IR because of the two that is the only rating that achieves ICAO status. The UK of course found a peculiarity of its airspace structure which enabled the IMC rating holder to be prohibited from flight in class A. Thus, there was a clear distinction between the privileges of CAA IR and CAA IMC rating holders in UK airspace.
The EIR attempts the same trick in a way compatible with European airspace (including the UK for those who think we shouldn’t be part of Europe) by distinguishing between IR holders with approach privileges and EIR holders without approach privileges (if the rumours are creditable). Unfortunately this is a very poorly executed trick because there is nothing more ridiculous than allowing a pilot to climb through cloud and then ask him to write his own ending.
So if there is to be a pan European sub ICAO IR a solution must be found which is based on exactly the same slight of hand that the UK found worked so well.
Mr Thorpe was right; you must permit the holder access to class A airspace or at least the lower airways whatever letter of the alphabet you assign to that airspace. However, we pilots are not good story writers, so rather than write his own end every time a way must be found of allowing the pilot to follow the script. In our hearts we all know that is the safer option which is why we all get so excited about made up cloud breaks on a hope and see basis. Moreover, the system is not constructed for us to do so – for that reason the EIR would make mavericks of pilots using the EIR in any meaningful way.
Aside form there being a philosophical need to distinguish between the privileges of an IR holder and an EIR holder there is I believe a safety case. In reality so far as instrument flying is concerned more accidents occur on the approach than during any other phase of instrument flight. It is of course the one and only time we are intentionally closing with matter not compatible with flight or our health. Moreover the closer we get, the smaller the margin for error. As some narrators have pointed out the UK also sits peculiarly in terrain in which we haven’t built airports in mountainous areas. That enables the draftsmen to write approaches which have much more margin for lateral separation than some approaches in Europe.
There has been much debate over whether the recommended minima for IMC rating holders are more than recommendations; whatever the original intent the draftsmen was either having a bad day or had his mind on something else. When I passed my IMC rating a long time ago I thought the higher minima were mandatory and operated to those minima. The higher minima suited me; it took me a long time to feel completely comfortable with popping out at even 400 feet, never mind lower.
I fly for business and pleasure. There are days I really need to fly, but never days I have to fly. In fact since most of my business is in the UK although I kid myself it is faster by aircraft than car when I add up the whole journey there is rarely much in it unless I am going to the I of W (or the CIs) but in the case of the former I don’t have the luxury of an instrument approach in any event. I guess there are a few GA pilots who have to fly, but I would equally bet there aren’t many. Moreover even with an IR and an aircraft that is de-iced there are still 10 days out of every 100 I wouldn’t choose to fly.
For me this means that I rarely see minima’s; and when I do they are not by choice unless I feel a desperate need to fly one, and often it will be with a mate of mine who is a training captain with BA. Checking my log book I have flown to minima’s three times in the last year of which one required a diversion. Am I unusual – I don’t think so?
Where is this going?
Well, we need to find a distinction between the privileges of an EIR holder and an IR holder. We have talked our selves into believing an EIR holder needs more protection than an IR holder and we have acknowledged that the most dangerous part of an IF is the approach. I think we might also all agree the danger increases the lower we get OR in circumstances where the approach is less protected from surrounding terrain. I don’t suppose any of us would argue that vectors to a cloud break on the localiser at minima plus 500 feet should unduly tax an instrument trained pilot. I know, what about the approach in Geneva – and I have flown it! We all check the plates before we launch don’t we? After all it is a legal requirement. The airport authority in conjunction with the national regulatory authority (will that become EASA?) writes the AP for every airport. Perhaps where the IAP falls within certain parameters there might be a caveat under the minima box – NAEIR – not available for EIR holders.
I wonder.
And perhaps the UK would nearly keep its IMC rating privileges at most of its airports by one means or another.
Wouldn’t that be a clever trick?