IR - order of events

[tmmorris]

Am planning an IR over the next couple of years (purely for PPL use, not planning to go commercial).

Could some kind soul please confirm I have the order of events right under JAR:

(a) attend a ground school course (possibly distance learning)
(b) pass ridiculous number of exams (rather than the US's one)
(c) do the flying bit
(d) pass the 170A test
(e) pass the IRT?

Also is (a) right, i.e. you can't just enter yourself for the exams if you think you're clever enough?!

Tim

[FlyingForFun]

Yes, that's about right.

Not sure exactly what the score is with the 170A - I've only ever heard that phrase used for a CPL, not an IR, but since I haven't done the IR yet I may be wrong. But in any case, that will just be part of C) anyway, not actually a step in its own right.

The only other thing you've not got quite right is the "possibly distance learning" bit. Unfortunately, there won't be much choice. The list of approved schools (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/SRG_FCL_APPROVEDFTOS.PDF) only contains 3 schools approved to offer this course (see page 6), and all 3 of those are distance learning schools. The only other option would be to do the ATPL exams on a residential course, get the IR, and let the exams lapse without getting the CPL :eek:

Good luck - you may need it!!!

FFF
--------------

[mad_jock]

You forgot shell out huge quanities of money.

You have it pretty much right. There is 4 weeks of residential ground school even if you do the distance learning.

And the ground school have to sign you off to be able to sit the exams although they only did this for the first set of exams for me. I don't know if anyone checks for the second set though.

MJ

[RodgerF]

A completed form 170A needs to be in the possession of a candidate for the IRT as well.

If you have a Class 2 medical you will need an audiogram.

Your PPL must contain a Night Rating or Night Qualification.

There is a X-country hours requirement.

Its all in LASORS

R

[tmmorris]

Not much to be gained by doing an FAA IR and then converting, either, as far as I can tell: still 15hrs training to do and still need to do the course/exams.

Harrumph...

Tim

PS Interestingly the CAA list didn't include someone I spoke to at the London Air Show on Sat called ?Pilot Training Ltd. based in Bournemouth, who offered distance learning plus 2 weeks' residential.

All very unnecessary, if you ask me...

[S-Works]

And there you have hit the nail on the head as to why so many people opt for an FAA IR instead of a JAR one.

It IS all very unneccessary.

Also missed out the onerus yearly and very expensive IR renewal test with of course the very expensive CAA fees.

[S-Works]

It wasn't a rant.

I am impressed, just done my renewal fro the MEP alone was 1:15 for the skills test which comprised of steep turns, stalls, EFATO, Asym flight. Not sure how we would have fitted an IR renewal in there as well.

It may work combining with a twin renewal but who said TM wanted to do an MEIR?

In my experiance the JAR IR is much more costly and difficult to gain and maintain.

But like I said not a rant but I can start one if you want?

:}

[GT]

rustle,

£125? Luxury! £160 where I do mine!! Plus £50 for letting me use aerodrome!!!

GT.

[IO540]

The biggest problems with the JAR IR are the silly ground school, and the pointless additional audiogram which you fail if you have assymetric ear performance despite hearing on a standard aviation headset (which is mono not stereo) perfectly well...

[Wrong Stuff]

You have it pretty much right. There is 4 weeks of residential ground school even if you do the distance learning.

Actually just 2 weeks of residential ground school - 1 week per module - certainly at GTS in Bournemouth and almost certainly at all the others.

Incidentally, I used GTS and would highly recommend them for the groundschool - they really know their stuff.

The groundschool is reputed to be boring and irrelevant, but apart from a few notable exceptions (eg airlaw history and selcall) it was mostly pretty interesting. Some of the stuff you have to memorize is totally useless. Other bits, such as met, is fascinating and very useful indeed.

[IO540]

rustle

The headset may be stereo but it's mono by the time it comes out of the intercom, except possibly when feeding something into the crew music input :O

With the number of 25k hour, VERY deaf, grey-haired but current ATPLs I've met, I can't help this is another initial hurdle.

[UL730]

Confirm (a) to (e) correct sequence.

Most folk find the whole process a test of endurance and determination - especially if you are trying to hold down a full time job. There are a number of thresholds to overcome and don't be surprised at doing a few of the elements or parts thereof - more than once.

Further order of events - one year down the line.

Renewal for MEP LAND/IR-SPA-ME is a combined annual 2-hour plus flying shakedown for which you will need to be totally current on procedural and GH aspects. Same standards as the initial IRT. Noticed more and more of US style oral examination entering the pre-flight and post-flight briefing with focus on technical questions - cross feeding, gear failures, engine fire procedures. Depending on the examiner - the renewal also includes more failures beyond just asymmetric flight that already lasts for about 1/4 to a 1/3 of the I/F element of the test. DME, RT, autopilot failures - then throw in de icing failures or simulated ice accreting faster than you can clear it - sometimes you wonder what next!

It's all achievable and probably less than a good line check and renewal on type with IRT that our commercial brethren undergo in the sim. (No smoke or really obscure systems failures!)

Expensive but totally safety focused and a good way of staying up to speed with the latest thinking.

Go for it. :ok:

[tmmorris]

Just to scotch any rumours I am definitely not planning a MEIR - as I fly mostly for pleasure I'm not in such a hurry to get places that I'm willing to double my flying costs by flying a twin (though if someone came along with a DA42 Twin Star I might change my mind...!)

It might be too early to tell, but are there any statistics on how many people let JAA IRs lapse?

Presumably I could combine my SEP revalidation with the IRR every other time - at the moment I combine it with the IMC renewal biennially.

Tim

[UL730]

Tim

This link to PPL/IR Europe (http://www.pplir.org/index.cfm) contains a wealth of information.

Not really sure how many folk let these ratings lapse? I suppose eventually all ratings lapse but it would be a big pity to let it lapse within six years of gaining it - otherwise you would have to do it all over again. This would be a bad thing and not the way of dam fine airman!

It's a mute point - but if you have an IMC rating this can be revalidated automatically with your IRR. Sort of interesting little freebie. :hmm:

[RodgerF]

Quote:

Presumably I could combine my SEP revalidation with the IRR every other time - at the moment I combine it with the IMC renewal biennially.

There is nothing more to do beyond the IRR itself. The IRR counts as your 'dual flight with an instructor' in its own right.

[tmmorris]

The IRR counts as your 'dual flight with an instructor' in its own right

Absolutely right - and fortunately the CFI I deal with agrees - though there have been alarming incidences (there was a thread on here a month or so ago) of the 'dual flight' starting to become a test with specified content.

I can see the benefits of the IRR including IMC, actually, as if you were a bit late with or partialled the IRR one year, you would at least have another 13 months' IMC privileges to tide you over while you sorted out the problem.

Tim

[tmmorris]

Unless you think that being bang-on the centre down to 500' AGL on the ILS, then drifting wildly (more than half scale) from 500' to 250' AGL should qualify as a passed IMC

Though of course on an IMC rating at 500ft AGL you'd be visual... wouldn't you...?

T

[IO540]

The increased IMCR minima are advisory, not mandatory. Only the 1800m vis is mandatory (ANO).

A great deal of stuff appears in the mountain of paper emitted by the CAA. It's advisory unless it is the law.

Legally, an IMCR pilot can descend to the published minima.

[IO540]

rustle

I asked this question once and was told No and that one has to nominate the purpose of the skills test in advance. Of course, whatever you can agree with the examiner will be fine :O

It's a similar situation with instrument training. I asked if I could start on training for the IMCR and then, before the IMCR skills test, change my mind and continue to the full IR. The instructor was a frozen ATPL. He said it can't be done. Could there have been some other reason?

[WD40]

Yes, there is, honest.

The IMC is a UK rating but the IR is a JAR rating and has to be completed at an approved FTO to an approved syllabus (with approved instructors....), so unless you start on a 'proper' IR course, the CAA will not recognise any IMC training as contributing towards IR issue!

[PhilD]

.... leading to this situation:

- CAA defines a national rating (IMC) and the training required for it
- IMC training is not recognised or credited if you train for a JAA IR
- FAA will recognise IMC training towards an FAA IR
- JAA will recognise an FAA IR and reduce the training for a JAA IR to 15 hours
- CAA will recognise a FAA IR and give you an IMC

So my recommendation if you think you might want a JAA IR is:
A) if you have an IMC then get a FAA IR. This will give you instrument priviliges in N reg without the JAA ground training lunacy, and should you then go for a JAA IR it will reduce the expensive JAA flying training to min 15 hours

B) if you don't have an IMC get a FAA IR. You get a ICAO IR, an IMC for free, and a discount off the JAA IR training.

[Justiciar]

As someone who has done none of this training except the IMC but who has looked into this extensively, including speaking with those who have done the JAA/IR and the FAA/IR the first comment to make is this. Which ever route you take its going to be very hard work. The FAA IR does require fewer hours, 40, of which your IMC hours will count, as will any other instrument flying you have logged. Though the exams are fewer, one multiple choice done on computer at the FTO, the flight test apparently starts with a significant in depth oral exam which people can and do fail!

The currency requirements are to do six instrument approaches in 6 months and there is a biannual flight review. Also the qualifying cross country time is higher as cross country only counts if you travel more than 50 miles as opposed to the much reduced limit (I've forgotten what it is here!).

So, don't do the FAA IR unless you have regular access to an N reg and can keep current.

Transfer to a JAA IR is also not straight forward. Although you have to do 15 hours training you also have to pass all the exams at either ATPL or IR level.

By the time you've done all this you are not likely to be significantly ahead on cost, especially if you train in the US for the FAA IR.

[IO540]

One also needs to remember that an IMC Rating needs a CAA PPL, and the CAA Class 2 medical. If you fail that medical but fly (in the UK) under the FAA medical, there can be problems; the CAA is entitled to ground you.

The problem with keeping two sets of medicals is that if you fail (I mean actually fail, with the AME knowing and telling the CAA) the UK one, you are stuffed.

Most people who go the FAA PPL/IR route have either never done a UK license/medical (the best scenario) or have let the CAA license/medical lapse.

[PhilD]

Justiciar

So, don't do the FAA IR unless you have regular access to an N reg and can keep current.

As someone who has done the IMC and FAA IR, I agree on currency, which applies to all instrument flying, but unless I am mistaken there is nothing in ther FARs to say that you cannot keep your FAA IR currency in a G reg.

[Justiciar]

there is nothing in ther FARs to say that you cannot keep your FAA IR currency in a G reg

That is presumably on the basis that you are flying VFR with a safety pilot when doing your 6 approaches. Can you fly IFR in the UK on a FAA IR in a G reg aircraft? I thought not, save to the extent of exercising your IMC privileges.

[S-Works]

You can keep an FAA IR current in a G reg plane provided you have an IMC rating as well. The FAA IR requires 6 APPROACHES to renew no airways flying. So doing the approaches within the rights of an IMC will keep it current.

[IO540]

Can you fly IFR in the UK on a FAA IR in a G reg aircraft?

Yes but only in Class G.

This is why, if the person also has a UK PPL+medical, he may as well send off the cheque and the application form to the CAA for the IMC Rating, which entitles him to go IFR in Class D also.

If the FAA IR holder did the six approaches in airfields in Class G (e.g. Biggin Hill) would that not count?

[S-Works]

Yes it would. The FAR's do not specify the class of airspace required only that the approaches need to be completed.

[Keef]

As a happy bunny with a UK IMC and an FAA IR, I reckon that's an ideal combination. All I need now is an N-reg aircraft (plans are afoot) and I'm all set.

The FAA IR is *not* a pushover - just a lot more logically thought out than the JAA one. It's based on ability to fly and understanding of flight, not learning vast amounts of irrelevant stuff.

As one who's been through some obscure ceremonies in his time, I would liken the JAA IR to "FAA IR plus secret society initiation rites and ceremony".

A former group colleague who did a CAA IR found the palaver of revalidating every year (he always passed) so arduous he gave up on the IR and went back to his IMC rating.

Then he emigrated to New Zealand where things are different again...

[PhilD]

As someone in the same position as Keef, I'm happy to agree with him.

[tmmorris]

Hmm... useful-ish...

I picked up a whole load of info at the London Air Show from various people (though Cabair's subsequent letter to me 'Thank you for your interest in a SE IR... your test will include... asymmetric approach and go-around...' shows a worrying lack of attention to detail!). Probably put it off until next year then do the writtens at Coventry or Cranfield and the flying at Aeros. Not sure yet. Or stick with the IMC...

Tim

[Justiciar]

Keef:
As a matter of interest where did you do your FAA IR?

I've just spoken to GTS at Bournemouth about the CPL distance learning course. They also do the IR papers. If their friendly and very speedy response to my emails is anything to go by they are worth considering for the distance learning.

[Keef]

I did my FAA IR at Naples Air Center, in Florida. I'd recommend them highly.

I did the writtens in the UK before I went, to get the academic stuff out of the way.

It wasn't easy, but it was enjoyable - and I've used it in anger since!

[Gruntos]

Can you fly IFR in the UK on a FAA IR in a G reg aircraft?

Um, Sorry I thought you could fly in any airspace up to C with an IMCR as defined in ANO.

I have filed and flown IFR with an IMCR and through D airspace with out problem. Are you saying I was illegal?
I remember one of the questions in the IMC exam asking about which airspace I was “Not” allowed to fly in and it was defiantly A, B and C.

Anyway I have re-registered my AC to N and I’m doing the FAA IR so 90 Kts in Airways Here we come!

[PhilD]

Gruntos

Read the statement you have quoted and the earlier posts in this thread. An IMCR and an FAA IR are NOT the same. Although the CAA will issue a IMCR on the back of a FAA IR, this can only be done (as was pointed out earlier in this thread) onto a JAA licence.

So - if you only have a FAA licence (no JAA) they can't grant you a IMCR. Without the IMCR you can't fly IFR except in Class G, as you would be able to do with any ICAO IR licence.