Thing, sorry for the miss understanding!

Guy's my beef is with EASA and the CAA on this 1,
I can not recommend doing the IMCr enough... I really really really advise people to do it before april and always have!

It's the fact these people can just change the rules out of the blue and the result is a few grand out of the direct pockets of us!

I am pissed off that my 'proudly earned' and expensive IMC rating can just be swept from me unless i get my wallet back out...

Imagine the DVLA trying the same thing

The IMCR was designed for British pilots to be used in British airspace as our rapidly changing weather conditions deemed that the priveleges granted by the rating would be useful and enable PPL's to use their licenses more often and get out of trouble safely if our unpredictable weather caught them out (as it has me).
The weather hasn't changed so PPLs will be less useful without the IMC rating. As everybody else says - get it if you can for safety's sake. Also, have fun practicing instrument approaches on your computer - you never know when such practice may be useful. Several years ago I watched a student with a mere 45 minutes flying experience in a C152 fly a complete ILS in a PA 28 down to a 200' decision height because he had had loads of computer practice. Whatever our brilliant and sensible regulators decide, it is your life, that of your passengers and you need to hold every card to make your flight safer if you can.

P.P.

My IMC rating expired in late oct. and haven't had a change to revalidate it yet.
Do I have to do that before April 2012?

pmh - I would strongly recommend you do, there is no hard info at the moment, but having a valid rating at the time of crossover would be the safest option.

Hi All,

Thank you for the answers very helpful and I would definitely like to do this.

The reason I thought of Florida, and I have not decided completely yet, is that I am currently living in Germany for work, and as it is a temporary placement I will get pulled back to the UK at some point (hence I would love the IMCR). So it is difficult for me to do the training at the weekends.

My thinking is to take some leave from work and do the training with an average of 2 to 3 flying hours per day.

If that is possible in the UK, then I would do that in the UK. I am just remembering the number of days spent looking skyward during December to May time (mainly due to winds); and the thinking that the US would offer almost guaranteed flying every day to ensure I could complete the training during a period of leave.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a school to do the IMCR in the UK that would be willing to offer a more intensive training? London Area/Southampton Area would be the most preferable, although I could B&B it anywhere for a week.

I completed an intensive IMC in the UK back in September. The fact that it is instrument flying means that you are not going to have to cancel due to wx as much as on a PPL course. Flying in real weather as opposed to under the hood is quite different and you really want to experience it. Flying around with a visor on in Florida is going to be a totally different experience than descending through thick cloud and turbulence.

Anyway, I would certainly recommend doing it and assuming we are allowed to continue to use it post April, make sure you keep the skills current. I am doing quite a few flights now that I couldn't have done before, we just keep it safe by having two IMCr pilots in the cockpit to share the workload.

Enjoy! Some of our training videos are here too: EGHHFlyers's Channel - YouTube

... and for a school you could do much worse than Bournemouth Flying Club. CFI is Tim - have a look on the website and give them a call.

That's a good point about the weather for training. It doesn't matter if it's crap because that's what you are training for. I had to cancel a lesson today and it's been quite sunny here with superb vis. I was cursing my luck not to be flying on such a nice day when the thought struck me that I would be wearing the foggles for 95% of the flight anyway, doesn't matter whether the weather is great or dog when you're training for IMCR.

I'd be shocked if you had any trouble at all getting a club to do an IMCr in a week for you here in the UK, I'd offer myself if I was based in the bottom right-hand corner.
You should get far fewer wx cancels than with a PPL course. It's all dual, the only wx that should ground you is vis. or cloudbase below minima, (which doesn't happen very often actually), wind over aircraft limits or airframe icing conditions.
Seriously consider using a school based somewhere with IAP's, it'll minimise the chances of weather cancels and remove the need for positioning flights, both important if you want it done in a week or so.
Also, as with any intensive flying course, try and get the theory exam done early.
Enjoy it, it's a great course, it'll be terrible if we do lose it. The two landmark moments are usually the first time you climb through an overcast and pop out into brilliant sunshine & blue skies on top, then when the runway seems to magically appear out of the murk from 500' on the ILS. It's fantastic to watch people's reactions to these two events.

If you are able / willing to leave the south coast, Coventry has an ILS in both runway directions (I keep finding airfields that only have them south-westerly), is open long hours (so could do the night qualification while you are at it), is not very expensive (eight pounds for a T&G off a radar vectored ILS recently) and quiet. There are six FTOs there: Almat, Aeros, Coventry Aero Club, Atlantic Flight Training, Classic Flight Flying Club (it has standard aircraft as well as classics) and Midland Air Training.

Good point about approach costs etc. At Bournemouth they were included. There is an ILS on both ends of the runway too.

I was planning to do this last year but never go to it. With EASA now round the corner, it's becoming a little more urgent.

Doing this in the UK (Bournemouth sounds good!), would 7 days somewhere in January/February 2012 be sufficient for an intensive course (weather permitting of course - but that's the whole point of an IMC...)?

I've got a UK issued JAR-FCL PPL. I realise I won't be able to use the rating in the Netherlands (other than VFR-on-top), at least until April 2012, and I know the situation after April 2012 is still unclear.

BackPacker. You'd need a better mind than me to work out whether any UK IMC rating you do now will ever lead to any useful qualification you can use in the Netherlands under EASA in the future. I think the general consensus (and I am sure to be corrected) is that that the IMC rights will be grandfathered by EASA allowing local licensing authorities to add additional privileges to licenses so that equivalents of the national ratings can be maintained.

Whether you could do the course in 7 days is a good question. When I did mine, there were two of us back seating each other’s lessons. Generally we would fly two sorties each per day. You'll probably find that at the beginning two hours per day is enough as it is quite hard work. Once the basics are grasped you could probably managed three per day. The only problem with Jan and Feb will be the number of light hours in the day... Not sure if you can combine the night rating and IMC, or whether if you already have a night rating whether you could do the IMC training during the hours of darkness.

I'd highly recommend giving the folks at Bournemouth Flying Club a call; I may be a little biased, but I have done all of my training there and completed everything in minimum hours and with positive feedback from the examiners. They are a nice bunch of people too!

What I would strongly recommend for any initial instrument qualification is to get a basic sim (FSX will do) and hammer that until you know the procedures fully.

One should never get airborne in a real plane unless one knows everything one is supposed to be doing when up there.

Up there is no place to learn procedures, yet that is exactly what most instrument pilot trainees end up doing. It is a slow process because one's brain is so overloaded just hand flying the plane.

So, get yourself FSX, a cheap £10 stick (no need for a yoke or pedals), a pile of old approach plates, and make sure you can fly every plate which somebody sticks under your nose, within 5 minutes.

I saved myself many hours, and four figures, with FS2000, on the IMCR training. After that, on the FAA IR, I never used the sim because there was nothing in the FAA IR which I didn't already know. Similarly, in the JAA IR, there is nothing I new (apart from a load of NDB hold stuff, ADF dip estimation, etc :) ).

Seconded! (with FSX)

IO540, been there, done that. Holds, SIDs, STARs and airways too, by the way, without the need for a simulated GPS even. Just need to do it for real...

Question for fs2004 users, is their a way to start position the aircraft where you want it 'Closing the localiser' rather than flying yourself to the position?

Roff

Roff, look for the "slew" mode. From memory - Capital R. This will suspend the aircraft in midair and you can then fly it to whatever location you want - helicopter style.

Once in the proper position, save the game so you can go back to that position later.

:) Straight up the stairs i go to try it

It's 'y' for slew on Flight Sim :)