Instrument Ratings...

[flash8]

I should have known this or at least been aware of it... but it still shocked me!

Less than 1% of PPL's hold an IR in the UK (CAA/JAA etc)

Around 50% of FAA PPL's hold an IR.

Shurely shome mishtake?

[Genghis the Engineer]

Cost of doing an FAA IR, about US$4,000

Cost of doing a JAA IR, about US$35,000

In the UK only, there is something called an IMC rating, which is a sort of reduced IR for PPLs, but I'm not sure what the stats are on that - probably, I'd guess, similar to those of FAA PPL/IT holders.

G

[Hour Builder]

Why should that be a mistake?

Spending £16000 or so on an IR rating is not the easy for every pilot flying on Sunny afternoons in perfect VMC, and the FAA IR is about 1/4 of the price.

A big majority of UK PPL holders have an IMC rating anyway.

HB

[aztec25]

Hour Builder,

"A big majority of UK PPL holders have an IMC rating anyway"

Can you point me at some evidence which supports this statement.

Thanks

Az

[LondonJ]

I feel a poll coming on.

[S-Works]

its all part of a secret ploy by the "establishment" to keep the little people in there places......

:p

[helicopter-redeye]

but hardly any helicopter pilots have an IR and there is no IMC(H) so the figures are even lower here (and the cost of doing the damn thing even higher than $35K...)

h-r:)

[Julian]

There is a thread on 'Post PPL Drop Out Rates' and this is one of the subjects covered.

Its absolutely mad that we charge so much for the IR. I have an IMC but only by virtue that I for it for free by possessing an FAA IR.

Yet again the IR is something the Yanks are leading the way on when it comes to GA.

Julian.

[S-Works]

The lack of PPL held IR's in europe is down to a mix of cost and difficulty. european aviation lives in an old fashioned world of elitism and generally does not properly recognise the place of the PPL in the scheme of things. The JAA really only exist to serve commercial aviation and I feel in real terms the PPL is viewed as nothing more than an anoyance that is to be legislated out of existance.

When an IR is made availble to the PPL world that equates to its FAA equivalent in respect to achievability then the uptake will be massive and probably achieve the levels we see with the FAA. But it has to be an IR that has realistic exam and training requirments and is orienated to private aviation rather than a wannabee aiming for the seat of a jet. A single FAA style exam with real world content. The practical aspects of the training are pretty much on par with the FAA if a little long on hours.

I have been doing a JAA IR for what seems a lifetime, the practical has been pretty easy but the time consuming work to complete the exams has been a nightmare. Doing a full time job and studying for ATPL levels of knowledge that are mostly useless in real IFR flying is very stretching. My JAA IR will have take a year to complete at next exams.

[IO540]

flash8

The figures are more or less correct.

In addition to previous posts, the reason for the poor takeup of any European national (and now the JAA) IR is not so much the cost of the flying - the cost of doing 50hrs (55 if a twin) with an instructor, plus other stuff, isn't too important on the scale of the costs of ongoing IFR flying. The main reason for poor takeup is the massive ground school, with a mandatory residential element. As has been mentioned, the UK has the IMC Rating and this gets you into the clouds in the UK adequately. So a full IR is really done for flying into Europe, and the candidate needs to be very seriously motivated. The sort of people who can afford to fly real IFR like that are usually pretty busy, running a business or something like that. It would take most of them years of hard work, in between running their lives, to do the exams. The IR exams are OK for the typical would-be airline pilot who is young and usually has plenty of time.

The 1% or 2% figure is actually much worse than it looks, because (of PRIVATE pilots) most Euro IR holders got their IR years ago, often many years ago, in days when there were easier routes to it. The number of PPL holders who get the current JAA IR is absolutely tiny and much less than 1% (one can see the data on the CAA website).

The CAA license issue data website suggests about 10% of awarded PPLs get the IMC Rating. My own guess is that very few of this 10% actually use it, because of the great difficulty in getting an aeroplane that's good enough for real IFR. And the IMCR is no good outside the UK (except for providing a VMC on top privilege) so it's back to the full IR, whereas an American pilot can do his entire life's flying in the big place called the USA.

Finally, in Europe, only a few countries have an active GA scene. Much of Europe is practically devoid of GA.

So, most people who want an IR do the FAA PPL/IR, and then they need an N-reg plane to get the privileges. Expensive too, need to be an owner, but at least one can get it.

[n5296s]

The 50% figure is also a bit misleading - as it happens there was an article on this in Flying this month. Of the 600,000 pilots in the US, many are commercial of one kind or another. (It's POSSIBLE to get a CPL without IR but unusual, and ATP must of course be IR). Of the remaining PPLs, the proportion is about 10%. Still a lot more than 1% of course. Personally I find that suprisingly low, because even in sunny California you really need an IR if you want to be able to plan to fly anywhere ahead of time (versus just deciding on the day).

The theory part of a US IR is a piece of cake - not much more to learn than for the PPL. The practical side of course requires a few tens of hours of flying to get the hang of it, and a dozen or so hours per year of recurrent training if you want to stay safe.

n5296s

[IO540]

The theory part of a US IR is a piece of cake - not much more to learn than for the PPL

News to me!!!! I've just done it.

The FAA PPL written is several weeks revision, starting from a relatively recent JAA PPL holder position.

The FAA IR written is about 6 months' revision, starting from the position of an IMC Rated pilot (who incidentally got 100% in the IMCR exam) who flies a lot and basically "knows the rules" and the way all the navaids work already.

Obviously a very bright but jobless individual with no life can do it much quicker but the above figures are for someone with a job and some sort of life at home, and 100% support from spouse/partner.

[tashi]

The FAA PPL written is several weeks revision, starting from a relatively recent JAA PPL holder position.
I was on an intensive JAA PPL course in the US and they gave twos day intensive study for the FAA written exam, then sent us to sit the test about a week later. There were probably about 8 students, I don't know if anyone had their PPL yet, but I think everyone who took it passed.
Obviously a very bright but jobless individual with no life can do it much quicker but the above figures are for someone with a job and some sort of life at home, and 100% support from spouse/partner
i admit i didn't have a job :) (having a life, that's a question of definition), but i think most of the other people did...

[High Wing Drifter]

Spending £16000 or so on an IR rating is not the easy for every pilot flying on Sunny afternoons in perfect VMC, and the FAA IR is about 1/4 of the price.
£16000! More like £8000 for an SE IR including ground school.

My interpolation of the CAA stats suggests that 1/5 to 1/4 of PPL holders have and IMC.

[18greens]

My interpolation of the CAA stats suggests that 1/5 to 1/4 of PPL holders have and IMC.

And all of the rest of them should get one. People dither over it then get very excited when they do it. Flying approaches, getting over cloud etc etc all great fun. Fifteen hours next to an instucuctor is no bad thing either.Its the next step up. You are also happier about flying in more marginal conditions.

Having an IR though is the dogs, transits in class A, airways and a night rating that works in europe and approaches to 200'. If you have the means I highly recommend it.

[IO540]

You can fly approaches to the published minima (i.e. the IR minima) on the IMCR :O

The 500/600ft stuff is CAA advisory only. It's not in the ANO. The CAA is however very naughty to assume this in the IMCR exam questions! The 1800m min vis is mandatory though.

HWD - how do you estimate that 20-25% of holders of (unexpired) PPLs have an unexpired IMCR?

From the CAA Personnel Licensing Stats site, PPL(A) data

http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?categoryid=175&pagetype=68&groupid=559

2000-2001 PPL=2518 IMCR=??? ????
2001-2002 PPL=2295 IMCR=301 13%
2002-2003 PPL=2233 IMCR=337 15%
2003-2004 PPL=2102 IMCR=352 17%
2004-2005 PPL=1913 IMCR=308 16%

What sticks out is the alarming year on year drop in new PPL(A) issues but that's not the issue here.

There cannot be more valid IMCR holders than there are PPL holders, because an expired PPL kills the IMCR too. So the % of valid PPLs holding a valid IMCR must fall with time.

We can speculate how many PPLs who once had an IMCR keep it valid. My guess, from meeting other pilots who fly, is that way over 50% of IMCRs are expired.

The other thing is that the self fly hire scene isn't exactly conducive to somebody maintaining an IMCR. I mean, what can you do in a typical knackered old heap with an IMCR that you cannot do on a plain PPL. Anything that has a horizon, a microlight even, can fly in IMC en-route, navigating perfectly well with a handheld GPS, and there is no chance of getting caught doing it, so there is no incentive to keep the IMCR valid for that. One can also depart "VFR" pretty freely, in the UK. The IMCR is very much for flying approaches legally. What % of self fly hire planes have a fully working VOR/DME/ADF/ILS, FM Immune so you can do it in Class D, and properly tested and signed off so you can bet your life on the ILS (which you WILL be doing)?

I would be amazed to see as much as 5% of PPLs having a valid IMCR.

The interesting thing would be to analyse the "valid licenses" data

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/175/srg_fcl_Summary_of_ValidLicences2000.PDF

and correlate it with the new license issue data. We could get a reasonable grip on how fast licenses expire. Volunteers?

Example: taking the years 95-97, there was no increase in the # of valid PPL(A)s, yet presumably the # issued each year would have been about 3000. So during each of those years, for everybody who got a PPL another chucked theirs away. What we can't tell is the lag in the numbers i.e. how long people keep it for. The CAA is quite clever in the data they present ;)

Tashi - I can believe you. Total immersion works wonders for the pass rate. It all gets forgotten just as fast, but that's not the point :O It's obvious that the JAA IR is DESIGNED for airline pilot school type of immersion training, and THAT is why people "with a life" find it so hard to do it.

[rustle]

HWD - how do you estimate that 20-25% of holders of (unexpired) PPLs have an unexpired IMCR?
With no annual retest (no retest at all if "current" under FAA regs) how does anyone know that 50% of FAA PPLs have valid IRs?

You don't.

Or do the FAA stats include everyone who's done the required number of approaches every 6 months to remain valid?

So there could be just as many un-valid FAA-IRs as there are un-valid IMCs out there, surely? (Percentage-wise, obviously. In raw numbers I would expect the number of lapsed FAA-IRs to dwarf the number of UK PPLs ;))

[englishal]

Aren't statistics great? They can be bent to any purpose ;)

Typically in the US, of the 600,000 pilots there will probably be a higher percentage of "Commercial Pilots" too. This is becasue the CPL is achievable the same way as the IR is and many PPLs will naturally progress from Private to Instrument to Commercial.....probably for insurance premium reasons or to ensure a long and healthy life if for nothing else (I'm sure the stats would prove CPLs are less prone to incidents).

So you could say that more US *private* pilot (i.e. who is not employed as a pilot) must therefore be a better pilots than the *average* UK pilot who is not employed as a pilot.....follow me? Therefore there must be something fundamentally wrong with JAR, unless of course it is in the name of European protectionism.

but hardly any helicopter pilots have an IR and there is no IMC(H) so the figures are even lower here (and the cost of doing the damn thing even higher than $35K...)
Which again is a con. The IR(H) in FAA land can be added exactly the same way as IR(A) in an R22 instrument equipped. If you already hold an IR(A) you need only to do around 15 hours in the R22 and be competent enough to pass the flight test.

[Whopity]

Since the introduction of JAR-FCL, FI(R)s no longer have to get the Applied IF restriction removed from their FI rating to upgrade, consequently very few of the FIs qualiifed in the last 5 years can teach for the IMC rating.

Less aerodromes let you do IF training so the two things have resulted in a reduction of IMC rating training.

The old UK IR was 40 hours, the JAA IR is 55 hours, everyone said it was too long, but the first time pass rate is now lower that it was with 40 hours. Could it be that more hours are now flown in the STD and less in the Aeroplane!

[High Wing Drifter]

I would be amazed to see as much as 5% of PPLs having a valid IMCR.
From conversations, anecdotally, I would be suprised if it were that many. The vast vast majority of people I've spoken have an IMC but have also let it lapse. I imagine the same is true for all those CPL/IRs who never acheived an ATPL (there must be thousands of them!).

(It's POSSIBLE to get a CPL without IR but unusual.
Has anybody else noticed the rather strange CPL/IR stats? What's going on there then? 800 CPLs and 100 IRs? I would have assumed that most CPLs will add an IR at some point.

[IO540]

Englishal

"Therefore there must be something fundamentally wrong with JAR, unless of course it is in the name of European protectionism."

Surely, objectively, JAR is politics or, if you like, European moral and intellectual superiority over the USA. There isn't any way to dress it up when the FAA standards work for most of the civilised world, and most of the uncivilised world too. If common sense only was used, every country would either adopt the FAA system (and pay the FAA some money for managing the paperwork), or they would write their own based on FAA with just the front cover changed.

Whopity

I don't think 40 v 50 hours is relevant to any private pilot. Almost nobody (piston engine context) would do the IR except for European IFR, and the cost difference doesn't even feature on the landscape of IFR flying costs (which usually start with owning a plane, or a part of one). The 90% killer is the ground school, and for others it is details like the bizzare JAA hearing test which disqualifies a lot of people who can hear normally socially and can hear perfectly with a headset (while, naturally, allowing deaf as post 25,000hr ATPs to keep their jobs). The FAA IR requires putting a plane on the N reg and this is a massive and expensive hassle even in the simplest cases, yet people still do it.

HWD

I imagine that the stats are skewed by the airline pilot students, shown at various stages of their training. A CPL without an IR is useless for airline employment purposes, and in the UK a private owner-pilot doesn't even get cheaper insurance with a CPL. I might do a CPL when I go to the States, if I have time spare after finishing the IR, but it will be only to fill in the time before the return flight. A CPL is of use to a company employed pilot, flying a G-reg, that's all.

[High Wing Drifter]

IO540,

Exactly my point, the number if IRs issued against a CPL should be much higher...or at least that's how I would have imagined it :confused:

[IO540]

I am sure they are but if you have say 300 pilots in the airline pilot sausage machine, first doing a PPL, then a CPL, then an IR, then hour building for an ATPL, any snapshot of the scene will show a number of CPLs without an IR.

The CAA could present the data a lot better but presumably they choose not to. Any more data would, I bet, show the PPL training industry in a very poor light.

But I really know next to nothing about the airline pilot training process. I've always found it bizzare that so many of them hang around flying schools, doing PPL instruction for a £10/day retainer, just to get 1500 or whatever hours in their logbook, when those hours (in a C152 etc) cannot be remotely relevant to flying an airliner..... Someone explained the process to me the other day but it didn't really register.

[18greens]

IO540,

Looking at those CAA stats, in a year when 200 new aeroplane instructors appeared only 1 IRI appeared.(but 8 helicopter IRIs)

How many instructors are capable of teaching IMC?

Where are the stats for that?

[IO540]

Most of the instructors that teach the IMCR do not have, and have never had, a full IR.

It's a poor situation that perhaps ought to be improved, but then (IMV) an instructor who has an IR but never flies anywhere for real (which is also true for most of them, with or without an IR) isn't going to be of much benefit to the student, either, because this stuff is all about going places.

The demand for a JAA IR is close to zero now, so few instructors (outside the airline training business) have an incentive to get, and keep current, an IR.

Somebody will correct me on this I hope, but I think historically there were different routes to being able to teach the IMCR. Way back, a PPL could teach PPL (!!). Such a person could then get grandfathered into a BCPL, and a UK CPL got an honorary IMCR. I doubt the numbers on this exist - just like there won't be ready numbers on how many UK (CAA) PPL/IR holders got their IR via various of the now-closed routes. For example there used to be a "700hr experience" route which avoided some part of the ground school, I think, which I know nothing about.