Confusing world of advanced ratings :D

[peterh337]

In reality

be in low level airways or mixing with airliners

is a non-event. It's the easiest kind of flying, and the nearest you will get to an airliner is this



(look for the dot near the middle).

The overcrowded airspace is just hype. ATC separate people widely in terminal areas, and Eurocontrol routings take you a long way away from those areas when enroute anyway, as e.g. here the routing around Paris which is absolutely forced on everybody below FL200

[bookworm]

The overcrowded airspace is just hype. ATC separate people widely in terminal areas

You miss the point, or perhaps mis-assess the situation. Most of the time, in almost every aspect of flying, you can screw up, and nobody dies. That doesn't mean that the overall level of safety is sufficient if pilots do not have the level of competence they need to fly properly in the system. It's not hard to follow an instruction to fly a level and a heading, but you have to be able to do it accurately and robustly. You may not need to do that at FL70 on A34 in western France, but you better be able to when necessary in the London, Brussels and Frankfurt TMAs.

Besides as people say, none of the current IR trainng really sets you up to plan a flight across Europe or something, and use alternative internet sources for planning.

I would love to say that that will change instantly with the CBM IR. Unfortunately, I think it will take years for that to happen, but the CBM IR should at least remove a lot of the truly arcane stuff from the theoretical knowledge, as well as meaning that the flight training that you do is only what you need to get to the required standard.

[Ultranomad]

Judging by the radio traffic, even on a bright sunny weekend in continental Europe, fewer than 5% of those flying VFR are flying outside the immediate vicinity of their home base, and I suspect many of those who do are already more or less competent in flying with reference to instruments. I seriously doubt an accessible IR would change the situation a lot except providing these 5% with a lawful privilege to do what they have already been illegally doing from time to time.

[peterh337]

I seriously doubt an accessible IR would change the situation a lot except providing these 5% with a lawful privilege to do what they have already been illegally doing from time to time.

I agree very much with that, and it ties in with what I said earlier i.e. don't start on the IR (any IR) unless on a very honest self-assessment you meet the requirements I listed.

The vast majority of pilots will therefore never get an IR, and if (as a silly example) an IR was handed out to everybody with an IMCR most would let it lapse when they reach the first revalidation (£150+aircraft).

In the USA the % is much higher but that's partly because flying has a much greater utility value out there, partly due to the 6/6 rolling currency concession, etc. GA in Europe never had much utility value (too few airports for a start) and is not getting any better due to effective exclusion of GA from many big airports.

So while everybody understands that there is only one "IR" for everybody and thus the skills test has to be the same for everybody, there are loads of factors which limit who does what in what kind of airspace. For example a flight from Brussels to Zurich would be quite busy (and I would not look forward to it if I had to hand-fly it in a PA28-161) in IMC but almost no GA IR holder will choose to do it, for a whole pile of reasons. Most IR holders use their IRs mostly for leisure and they fly to "nice places".

[bookworm]

Any new on the CBM IR? It's gone awfully quiet...

"CRD imminent"

How imminent is imminent?

Imminent is now CRD here.

[rats404]

991 pages! Bl00dy hell...