Support for the IMC rating gathers pace

[Fuji Abound]

20 more signatures on the petition and it will be in the second page of the most supported petitions currently running.

Some have criticised the petition.

However, the support for the petition is a window for what pilots really think - not just the usual suspects on here, but the wider pilot community.

Thank you for your support.

The IMC rating is now safe for the next four years, thanks to the support of the CAA and EASA.

The debate is underway what shape or form the IMCr will take in four years time, or perhaps even sooner.

Please continue to give us your support at www.ukimc.org.

Here are some good reasons:

1. We will be completely transparent with you, there are no hidden agendas, all we care about is at the very least preserving your IMC rating rights - you know that license you trained hard for and spent many thousands of pounds obtaining,

2. Fighting for a rating that has an impecable safety record so that other pilots in the future will be less likely to kill themselves.

3. and there is no subscritpion involved, we just ask for your support please.

Thank you.

[bellend]

Is that official then

"IMC safe for 4 years"

Is it worth me starting it?

Well done for your campaign, regardless of politics it puts the focus on preservation of IMC rating

regs

[IO540]

In a nutshell, the UK IMCR is safe for 4 years. After that there is a political device to extend it. However, efforts will be under way in the meantime to produce some kind of Europe-wide IFR privilege into which the IMCR could be grandfathered.

I don't think anybody is going to stand for some thousands of UK IMCR holders suddenly being consigned to the VFR-only bin.

[Fuji Abound]

Martin Robinson who is in charge of AOPA in the UK wants the IMC rating expanded throughout Europe and has told EASA this is AOPA UKs policy.

AOPA UK are clearly fully in support of rolling out the IMC rating EASA wide. Good news indeed.

[llanfairpg]

Excellent news and well done to everyone involved.

I still think that the UK has an unique case in regard to its weather,topography and its size and shape.I think I am correct in saying we are one, if not the most densly populated countries in Europe occupying the smallest country.We certainly bear the brunt of the Polar front!

Perhaps some comparisons could be done on the UK weather with other countries and also the number of CFIT as opposed to other European countries.

[IO540]

It's certainly true that the UK has weather which justifies the IMCR, but I would not say this makes it unique in N Europe. I've seen the same sh**tty weather anywhere in France. And I've been in some horrid warm front stuff along former Yugoslavia, and Italy. It's only when one gets to Greece etc that it gets different.

The case for expanding some sort of sub-IR IMC privilege is non-trivial and would need to look at the airspace structure.

With a full IR, on a Eurocontrol flight plan, the airspace class becomes irrelevant because you have a whole-route implied clearance (and anyway the lost comms procedure is to just fly the filed route.....).

With anything below that, it becomes quite political, due to the strong emotional attachment to the full IR as some sort of "a guardian to the airspace in which professional pilots fly". In the UK this is taken care of by the Class A prohibition, but elsewhere in Europe you have extensive Class C. France for example has extensive Class E which would be a good fit for a sub-IR privilege.

There is a French document - I will try to find it again - going around which shows a double CFIT rate in France over the UK. However, I am reliably informed that the French authorities just shrug and say "that's OK, flying is dangerous, people will get killed" and that's it.