To IMC or not to IMC?

[daxwax]

Hi everyone
So yesterday I passed my PPL revalidation after ten years off. Delighted! It all came back fairly readily and thanks to Stapleford Flight Centre.

My question is whether you think I should try to get an IMC rating? (and I'm aware of the 8th April 2014 cut off for EASA)
Or instead should I simply use the privileges of my PPL to increase my skill, confidence, experience etc?

I will be flying a Diamond DA40 out of Stapleford so single engine. It's a lovely aircraft with all the IFR bells and whistles but no anti-ice. (and glides like a errrr...... glider which takes a bit of getting used to!)
My main type of flying going forward is likely to be touring with a friend or fellow PPL. I have about 140 hours total time - 70 of that was with East Midlands UAS where I got my PIFG but it was a fair while ago.

What do people think? Would an IMC rating be money and experience well spent or would I be better off simply hour building PPL? Would I actually feel confident enough to use an IMC rating in anger if I got it ie being single engine, in or above cloud? And would it then become a hassle keeping it valid?

Thanks - I realise that this is a question with no 'right' answer.

[Johnm]

Just do it. It will make you a better pilot and may one day save your bacon

[stickandrudderman]

Ditto. AOPA's promise to sue the government if anyone dies as a result of losing control in IMC sums it up.

[soarfeet]

You'll learn effectively as mich as you would doing an IR, without the expense of having to do it a variable pitch/retractable undercarriage. You'll up your game and it will open doors should you want to get involved in parachute drop flying for example, where some drop zones require flight into class A airspace (A discretion allows IMC holders undertaking parachute dropping to enter an airway).

[18greens]

Do it.

The time spent learning a new skill is many times more valuable than drilling holes in the sky.

The IMC is uniquely British, many people have spent many years fighting EASA to keep it. You owe it to them to get the qualification and keep it alive for others.

[custardpsc]

+1 for just do it. Its not that hard, its a great confidence improver and a potential life saver, to say nothing of experiencing the inside of a cloud making you aware of why you shouldnt be there unless you are rated and current.

[A and C]

Outstanding safety case

You can't underestimate the safety case for the IMC and you will always have this training behind you whatever the dullards at EASA do.

My advice would be to NOT do the training on a glass cockpit aircraft, the glass is almost too easy to use, two days ago I spent the first ten min or so playing catch up with a conventional instrument aircraft despite having about 400 hours IFR flight this year on glass cockpit aircraft.

Using a conventional instrument aircraft may me a bit harder to start but the reward is that you will be a much better and safer pilot for it and you will be ahead of the game when the glass goes blank and you have to revert to the standby instruments.

[Jetblu]

daxwax - In 1985 I faced the same dilemma as you, albeit without any EASA deadlines. One winters day in 1986 I gave myself the biggest fright of my life.
I set off from Southend in CAVOK. My destination was Haverfordwest reported as CAVOK. Enroute the weather deteriorated to marginal VMC. The next thing I remember was entering cloud and panicking. Although I had done 4 hours instrument flying in my ppl, that was barely enough experience to execute a 180 and get myself on a weather diversion to Cardiff, with reported better weather.
After that day, my mind was set on a instrument qualification to get myself out of any potential trouble.

As everyone has said here, it will make you a better pilot and I can thoroughly concur with that.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

My advice would be to NOT do the training on a glass cockpit aircraft

Is it not still the case that you need to do the partial panel unusual attitude recovery part of the test in an aircraft with steam dials? Seems sensible to me to do the entire course and test with steam dials and convert to EFIS afterwards.

[old,not bold]

I did an IMC rating (in an Aerobatic C152) for fun many decades ago; as I recall, apart from level flight under the hood it included recovery from (very) unusual attitudes, stalls and fully-developed spins using T&S, DG and ASI only (others blanked off), climbing and descending Rate 1 turns, maintaining a stated holding pattern (level and descending), doing a join overhead and let-down approach down to 500 ft using that procedure where you called repeatedly for QDMs and mentally plotted where you were relative to the runway, join overhead and let-down approach procedure to 500 ft on the ADF, take-off from start of roll (using the DG), turn and climb on course, all done firmly under the hood. Maybe it's more difficult these days, but I hope that it still has all those requirements or the modern equivalent, to produce a competent PPL.

The rating paid off handsomely when I got caught out by nightfall and cloud on the way to Le Touquet a year or two later (through stupidity, but that's not the point) and again when I had a engine failure (of the only engine) while IMC in cloud over the Italian mountains on route Naples - Brindisi. You could say that over-confidence due to the rating played its part in being IMC over mountains in the first place for that one, but it surely saved my life.

Among other reasons, lack of IMC competence was possibly a cause of the deaths of a PPL and his passengers in a single-engine aircraft, in a tragedy a few miles east of Exeter in the 1980's. Unable to maintain or increase height, while flying in cloud, due to icing and clearly increasingly stressed (judging by the tone of the RT, I was in the tower) he lost control and crashed. Had he been able to retain control and descend straight on the vector suggested by ATC he should have come out of cloud and icing conditions safely.

Do the rating. Without it you are missing an essential skill. It's as simple as that.

[rats404]

I was in a very similar situation, and did my IMC rating after revalidating my PPL. It was an excellent decision.

Do it, you will not regret it.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Maybe it's more difficult these days

Nah, the unusual attitudes aren't "very", there's no spinning, and when was the last time anyone did a QDM approach?

[daxwax]

Thanks everyone. A fairly resounding 'do it'!
I'll go and get me foggles on........

[custardpsc]

Oldnotbold, forgive me for asking but were you in imc before the engine failure, or as a result of it? It sounds like before, and you must have been relying on more than a imc rating (valid only in uk) in that case? Or did you chose to fly imc? None of my business, beyond curiosity as to whether you were perhaps vmc on top, and whether your imc had tempted you to rely on your skills to be safe either in imc or vfr on top, ie to put yourself in a position that a non imc ppl might seek to avoid. No doubt it saved you, but didnt it also tempt you? I ask, not to judge, but to debate and understand the temptation side of the coin, in uk and abroad.

[daxwax]

Does the new EASA opinion published today change things for me or not?
And is it true that the new enroute IR will allow for flight in class A airways?
Got my first IMC trip on Saturday.
Thanks

[thing]

Do it without a doubt (looks like you are doing anyway, top man). Don't look on it as a get out of jail card though. Use it regularly, stay in practise. I use mine whenever possible, there's nothing like climbing through the muck into a clear blue sky and brilliant cloudscape instead of scud running in the murk with the other mortals.

Edit: This of course supposes you have an instrument let down available at the other end!

[Pace]

Whatever you do holds a question mark! What would I do? Probably hot shoe it to the USA for a couple of weeks, use the money to get an FAA IR Then fly your hour building in the USA as IFR flight so you get the hours towards a conversion to a full EASA IR.
Flying is a much cheaper thing to do in the USA compared to europe!
But that is my opinion !
But hey we are all gambling on this one

Pace

[thing]

Whatever you do holds a question mark! What would I do? Probably hot shoe it to the USA for a couple of weeks, use the money to get an FAA IR Then fly your hour building in the USA as IFR flight so you get the hours towards a conversion to a full EASA IR.
Flying is a much cheaper thing to do in the USA compared to europe!
But that is my opinion !
But hey we are all gambling on this one

Pace

Meanwhile, back in the real world of people who can't just up sticks and go to the States for two weeks and then build up IFR hours.....

[Johnm]

Does the new EASA opinion published today change things for me or not?
And is it true that the new enroute IR will allow for flight in class A airways?
Got my first IMC trip on Saturday.
Thanks

Not really the EIR is just a proposal at this stage. If you get the IMCR done you will secure an IR(R) and that will give you the privileges to fly IFR up to and including Class D and fly approaches but only in the UK. If you subsequently take an EIR when available you'll be able to fly home from Europe airways and land via an approach. You won't be able to plan to fly approaches outside the UK though, but if the weather catches you out you will have the skills you need to get on the ground without drama. My IMCR saved my life in Germany when I got caught out in lowering cloud and rising ground. I just climbed into the cloud, sorted out a suitable diversion and flew the ILS into it! If there's any question raised over the legalities while in the air the answer is simple.... it goes MAYDAY,MAYDAY,MAYDAY. G-XX now in IMC request vectors for the ILS

[CISTRS]

Please do it.
The UK weather is so unpredictable so far as encountering unexpected IMC is concerned. Conditions can change in minutes.
I know.