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Bring back Di Heather Hayes!
Passed me with a 'few bollockings' as it were...I guess every flight test is a learning experience to an extent and I certainly didn't come away empty handed.
As for all the FAA vs. JAA stuff on reflection I actually don't know what all the fuss was about, the two flight tests were pretty much the same profile, i.e. departure, en-route, ILS, non-precision approach plus partial panel, UAs etc. There were only minor differences but stuff that came up on the FAA one like DME arcs could easily have come up on the JAR one and similarly stuff on the JAR one that didn't feature on the FAA one could have. The local training environment has more of an impact on what will be emphasised than the regulatory regime one is under.
What I will say though is that the CAA in the UK has a tighter grip on national examining standards than other authorities for the IR.
The JAA IR just felt harder because I was doing it on a multi rather than a single and was in an aircraft that I only had about 10 hours in even by the end of the course. Piper Seneca...
Last edited by Contacttower; 21st Mar 2012 at 20:03.
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Having also done both myself I tend to agree, but don't forget you are comparing the FAA system with the JAA system as the latter is now.
There have been many changes in the UK in the last year or two. I don't know the background (other than many snippets from ex insiders etc) but would imagine that the torrent of people doing their IRs and ATPs in places like Spain (where a "carefully chosen" FTO doesn't test NDB procedures, thus removing a vast swathe of required expertise at a stroke) might have something to do with it.
And that was before EASA
There have been many changes in the UK in the last year or two. I don't know the background (other than many snippets from ex insiders etc) but would imagine that the torrent of people doing their IRs and ATPs in places like Spain (where a "carefully chosen" FTO doesn't test NDB procedures, thus removing a vast swathe of required expertise at a stroke) might have something to do with it.
And that was before EASA
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Speaking as a taildragger pilot, you are gonna found out if you rudder is working (and has full movement) long before you arrive at the holding point and get to the "controls free and correct" item on your checklist.
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Same for a tricycle undercarriage, though to a perhaps lesser extent.
It's somewhat amusing to read this thread again, several months later. Today, the 170A is an institution which is ostensibly used to ensure uniform standards (but then what is the purpose of the IRT? - anybody being put forward for the 170A is by definition ready for the IRT) but in reality is often used to bend students over a barrel to extract a few grand extra, especially on an MEIR, and this is considerably easier to do at FTOs where the owner is also the sole authorised 170A examiner
(and there is a number of such FTOs about).
It's somewhat amusing to read this thread again, several months later. Today, the 170A is an institution which is ostensibly used to ensure uniform standards (but then what is the purpose of the IRT? - anybody being put forward for the 170A is by definition ready for the IRT) but in reality is often used to bend students over a barrel to extract a few grand extra, especially on an MEIR, and this is considerably easier to do at FTOs where the owner is also the sole authorised 170A examiner
(and there is a number of such FTOs about).
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Originally Posted by peterh337
Having also done both myself I tend to agree, but don't forget you are comparing the FAA system with the JAA system as the latter is now.
There have been many changes in the UK in the last year or two.
There have been many changes in the UK in the last year or two.
On the other hand, I still was taken aback when trying to discuss a G1000 scenario with an IR instructor yesterday - he had no idea what I was talking about because - you've guessed it - they only ever use it with the traditional navaids or a simple DCT to a waypoint, and all the route and approach loading, approach activation logic, fuel management etc. DOES NOT GET TAUGHT! So after 55 hours training, the student is sitting in front of expensive and very capable avionics, and can't use half of it.
I wonder what would happen if one turned up to an IR skill test in a G1000 equipped aircraft and used it as intended by Garmin, i.e., as a flight management system, and used it to - shock horror - manage the flight... maybe the examiner will exclaim "Finally! Someone who knows how to do this properly" and, of course, deactivate most of it halfway into the test, but somhow I doubt it, so we are not there yet... let's give it another decade, Peter!
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However, rather than news travelling slowly (I am sure every IRT candidate would grab any chance to fly the thing with the autopilot coupled to the GPS in NAV mode
) it is more a case of the FTO business having little incentive to spread the word, because of the low level of aircraft equipment, and low instructor knowledge of the stuff that some of them do have.The vast majority of punters working through the ATPL sausage machine have zero flying experience and will accept whatever they are told, or not told. In fact I believe most of them really do regard the 14-exam "90% bollox" TK as relevant to flying
It's only the very few owners who pitch up with their own well equipped plane who cause all the trouble
The system as a whole is simply not geared up for them. And, while these have always been rare as rockinghorse ***t in the JAA days (most went N-reg), they are currently even more rare because most of them are waiting to see what comes out of the EASA wash before they chuck away a piece of their life doing what I did...Interestingly, this doc is dated Oct 2011 so the CAA felt it necessary to remind IR examiners of it so recently.
Looking at the total JAA IR workload, I would say that use of GPS and autopilot is most welcome because it gives you a breather during the enroute sections (during which you can do the ATIS, the approach briefs, etc) but given that the 2hr-max IRT "objective" the IRT will be done to an airport no more than about 50nm away so those sections are quite short anyway, and as long as NDB procedures are theoretically in the IRT, you will still sink perhaps 50% of the training hours into them. Hence the attraction of a certain non-UK-run FTO in Spain where NDB is not tested in the IRT. A couple of people I know of did their conversions there in 1 week.
You don't need a G1000 to fly the entire IRT using GPS, autopilot, and NAV. All holds and NP approaches can be thus flown with the 1990s kit I have; only the ILS would be flown using the ILS receiver and that would be on autopilot too
Or you could reach a compromise with the examiner and fly the whole IRT manually using the flight director Congrats to Contacttower for joining the "EASA insurance policy" club
He can now move smugly in any circle of aviation regulators where he will be taken seriously
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Congrats to Contacttower for joining the "EASA insurance policy" club He can now move smugly in any circle of aviation regulators where he will be taken seriously
To be honest in the end I looked at it in quite a positive light from the point of view of the actual flying, I had a very good instructor who did teach me a number of useful things that were either not emphasised to me in the past or I had forgotten about since doing my FAA IR in 2008. In general my flying improved throughout the course. The ILS I flew on the test was probably one of the best I've ever flown for example.
The conclusion to draw from this though is that wherever you go (FAA, CAA or whatever...) one gets good instructors/schools and bad ones; having flown with instructors from at least six different flight schools in this country, plus ones in South Africa, Florida, California and New York, probably more than 30-40 in only 500 hours or so. I've seen everyone from newly qualified hour builders to 15,000hrs + former test pilots. Some have been significantly better than others, although on the whole they have been pretty good from all parts of the world.
Now I think the CAA in this country has a very tight grip on IR standards for the exam; which can only be a good thing. But considering the relatively poor first time pass rate though for the IR nationally in this country I think there must be significant room for improvement in instructor standards. This is also reflected in all courses, not just the IR but the basic PPL, IMC etc...I mean some of the posts on here about basic things that a PPL should know kind of give this away. On reflection I was rather messed around during my PPL not so much by bad instructors but more by lots of different ones with the result that crucial knowledge ended up falling between cracks.
My point about all that is that rather than focusing on written exams and what may or may not be in flight tests EASA should be looking more in depth at the training and experience of instructors...now I don't know how from a regulatory point of view exactly this is done but I feel that it is a crucial thing that is not been given enough emphasis at the moment.
