Presumably you just record at what time you reach a way point. If horror of horror happens and someone has been hacking / jamming the GPS system, you can do the maths to work out roughly where you are?

I do this in case my stop watch runs out of batteries (but then I'm still learning nav)...

Whatever GPS people are using, I just wish people would integrate into their flying properly. There seems to be increasing numbers of people that spend so long faffing about with electronics that their lookout just totally degrades. Flew with someone not so long ago who spent all flight constantly messing about with two GPSs and a PCAS who never once did a proper lookout scan.

A fair criticism, but who is teaching that? When the PPL and CPL syllabi are hellbent on teaching pure map-and-compass DR, and electronic navaids only for lost procedures, then the IMCR and IR syllabi use solely old fashioned navaids without cross-checking against visually, and virtually nobody is teaching use of GPS - most training environments are teaching approaches that are utterly different to the best practice that you and Bose are proposing (and with which, by and large, I agree).

G

No; I don't do anything. I just fly the planned route. See some trip writeups on my website. You would not want to do those using dead reckoning.

There is no need to know the ETA at each waypoint. In practice one flies at a chosen power setting. 23" / 2300rpm / 11.5 USG/hr gives me 138kt IAS (at low altitudes) and that's what I fly at. I will get to where I am going when I get there :)

At high altitudes, one is limited (non turbo) by the available MP, so e.g. at FL100, best economy, I might be doing 140kt TAS on ~ 9.5 USG/hr, and I can't do any more because the motor is sucking all it can suck, and it would be stupid to fly slower. Same all the way to about FL170/180, above which one needs a higher fuel burn (and max revs).

If some ATC unit asks me for the ETA to somewhere, I read it straight off the GPS :)

If GPS got jammed, which has happened (off Italy, 2004, for a few minutes) but is exceedingly unlikely, I would fall back to VOR/DME - and fly the same route. If the GPS unit itself packed up, I have 2 others (at least) kicking around; a G496 in the yoke, and usually I run a tablet computer with a VFR moving map on it.

I can hardly believe we are still having this debate in the 21st century. But nothing suprises me in aviation. The JAA IR ground school was approx 95% totally useless garbage. Stuff tossed out by the RAF due to irrelevance back in the 1970s.

Well, any instructor or examiner who doesn't focus on look-out during training wants sacking, but it is mainly post PPL where people get into bad habits I suppose. I teach sensible GPS use where I can during training courses - despite the urban myths (mainly perpetuated by those who aren't instructors or in the training business) there is nothing stopping GPS use during training, but students do have to learn and demonstrate the basic principles as well. I just can't believe that anyone flying with an Ipad on their knee isn't going to spend a bad amount of time heads down. I still love my Garmin 3 pilot which velcros to the top of the coaming well within a good scan!

It all depends on what app you are running.

If you are running a straight moving map app which shows the actual VFR chart, then no user interaction is required.

I think half the myths come from anti-GPS traditionalists, and half from people who saw somebody fumble around with the knobs trying to make the thing work. No way would I want to use a modern sophisticated handheld (e.g. a G695) without reading the manual and having a good play with it.

A moving map is still just a map isn't it.

There are, and always have been, plenty of pilots who will obsess with the chart, or obsess with their VOR, etc. A pilot obsessing with their GPS is just a more modern version of a bad habit.

G

Especially as you're on instruments for the climb out only a few seconds after take-off.

(Note: I've done the IMCr but not the NQ, but I did some of the IMCr lessons at night. There may be a way of keeping the aeroplane the right way up by looking out of the window when there's nothing to see, but I personally am happy knowing how to do it on instruments.)

Is it not time for a truly layered approach to navigational training? There is no sense of well-defined modules in PPL training. This seems to go as well for VFR and IFR learning.

And no regular "evergreening" of the syllabii. This happens at the operational end of the business, in all its forms, but in terms of basic flying training up to the acquisition of the IR no-one seems To Be Watching. And in Europe at least, this after two new pan-continent organisations having supposedly reviewed the training requirements in the last decade or so.

For an industry that vaunts itself as a model in safety-driven culture, it really is amazing that it can't implement some kind of strategic best practice (followed by decent project management) over this crucial aspect of its reason for being.

European GA at least will increasingly diverge between the very select group of PPL-IR's and the rest of us who will have to migrate to VFR-only 3-axis ULM's (or lighter) over the long run. Nothing wrong with that, you might say, but it seems like a less diverse pilot ecosystem to me. And crucially, less IMC-capable pilots, since the EIR looks nothing but a route to some very scary incidents in the next few years.

Let's just hope the IMCR and/or the French equivalent get to survive for those who can afford it and get hold of the right plane.

PS. Gertrude - you're absolutely right about the NQ vs IMCR. How you can get an NQ and use it properly without doing an IMCR is yet another hole in the non-strategic way the whole lower half of the pilot training world has become designed.

In South Africa, a country not with best of GA Safety Records, the NQ is about the same size as our IMCR. This seems about the right amount of seriousness that should surely be attached to it. Why is it not the same for Europe (where NF on SVFR is legal in many countries)?

http://ipv6.faa.gov/about/office_org...6.pdf#page=121

Always good to try and bring a bit of proper research into the loop.

G

I guess the important point though is that they are all tools... VOR/DME/GPS/NDB even Mk I Eyeball. When I fly I try not to rely on one thing and instead sort of cross check all the info and make sure that it makes sense to me. I did an NQ and IMC at the same time, and I can say that (although for the test I had to use one at a time) I now fly with most of them but will always consider what it is telling me.

Having now done both NQ and IMC I can say that I agree with the sentiment. I think an NQ is moderately unnecessary after an IMC, the only thing that I found odd was landing, because you have reduced reference, but a few circuits and I felt OK. The big eye opener for me was how invisible the clouds are; but as I popped into one towards the end of my IMC course I was able to use the Instruments and descend out of the cloud. I probably would have maintained altitude but it was middle of winter and probably above the freezing level.

On the subject of EIR, a thought I had... EASA seem to be making the statement that it has to be VMC-able at both departure and arrival aerodrome. But I am assuming that they will teach you how to climb and descend on instruments to adhere to the semi-circle or quadrantle rule... therefore by inference you may climb into or descend out of cloud. So how far away from the arrival aerodrome do you need to become VMC? As far as I can see if Cloudbase is high enough and above MSA, then you could just descend through the clouds, while en-route, and then arrive VMC?

Indeed ;)

The problem with aviation (and probably every other human activity) is that if you have a good old dig around, you dig out some very good people, a load of average people (by definition), and some total cowboys.

And unless you have data on what the entire participating population actually does, it is difficult to apply any data collected.

In GA, and this is true in the USA too, there is not a lot of data on what the pilot population actually does in the cockpit. You will probably interview only the subset who busted CAS and, gosh what a suprise, they will be people who either (a) got lost using conventional methods, or (b) got lost using a GPS on which they didn't know what the knobs do and they spent the whole flight fiddling with it without looking out. An over-simplification, but you get the idea. Researching the whole population is a whole load of legwork which is why nobody does it. Social research tends to be like that, which is why most of it is rubbish :)
:ok:

I find that the more automation, the more I look out.

That's a very good Q. At which point will you have to cancel IFR? is the Q you should be asking, because you are likely to be VMC anyway on the whole route...

The way I would work this system would be to file a traditional IFR (airway) route, validated of course by Eurocontrol, using tools such as this, but instead of the last waypoint of this route joining to the start of a STAR (which is what happens in "classical" IFR - but SIDs and STARs will be banned under the EIR), you will stick in a DCT to a waypoint picked to be a good place to do a DIY letdown if that becomes necessary, and then put the "VFR" keyword after that waypoint.

In most of Europe, DCTs can be say 50nm, so that gives you some leeway. Some airspaces have a MAX DCT = 0 so this won't work there.

I think that, like plain VFR flight, the EIR will work well to destinations with definitely good weather. Currently, VFR flight does this well because you can use the IMCR to land back in mucky UK wx. The EIR will give you that, plus the ability to fly above cloud etc enroute and with CAS being irrelevant as per standard Eurocontrol IFR practice. Like VFR, the EIR will be very safe with pilots who are "clever" and who fly to airports in low lands or on the coast, or in places with great weather. Most of my pre-IR long VFR trips used to meet all 3 of those conditions :) I wouldn't recommend it to Switzerland...

IMC RATING INTERIM STATEMENT
 

I have now been advised that the CAA's Interim Statement should be considered to apply until 30th June 2012 as further developments are anticipated before then.

None of which should be considered prejudicial to anyone considering training for the IMCR - it's just that a clearer idea of the specific licensing mechanism which will apply after 30 Jun is not yet known.

You can blame this whole nonsense on the intransigence of EASA; the UK CAA is just trying to find the best way to preserve the rights and safety standards enjoyed by UK pilots.

Interesting watching this from the sidelines as a new pilot with a whole 100 or so hours. I think in all occupations or pastimes you get martyrs for their particular cause.

I'm a professional musician and the music forums are exactly the same as this one. Just swap Piper and Cessna for Les Paul and Stratocaster or wind on the cheeks versus glass cockpit GPS for valve amp and Pod XT Live.

Peter bangs on about his GPS, others bang on about using nothing but a bar magnet and the feel of the wind on their cheeks. (Which cheeks I hear you ask). There's a guy I know who eschews GPS as white man's magic and reckons anyone who can't navigate by the way the wind blows across a field of corn shouldn't be flying. I'm being facetious about the field of corn but you get my point.

I asked him if he used a DI and he replied that of course he did. Phwaah I said, bloody techno man. I think he got my point.

I can't understand (my daughter is convinced I have Asperger's) why people can't just use whatever they feel they need to use. They are P1, Commander of the a/c. They are responsible for it's safe passage through the air, let them use whatever they feel safe using. Frankly I couldn't give a stuff how people navigate as long as they do it safely and keep a good look out.

For the record, I have everything possible switched on and tuned in, including a GPS, plus a stopwatch hanging off the yoke and a map with everything marked on it. Belt and braces? You bet.

Helps you judge the wind direction for that forced landing!

(Assuming of course that it isn't a check ride, so you weren't actually expecting a forced landing, so you hadn't bugged the wind direction on the DI in advance when the instructor wasn't looking.)

As if.....:)

OK - some help please.

I hope to complete by IMCr and get all my paperwork to Gatwick well before the 30 June 2012 deadline - I will then presumably be issued with a replacement JAR-FCL licence which will now include the IMC rating.

Given that my PPL licence is due to expire on 29 Sep 2013 (5 years), I understand that when I send my £76 for a reissue in Sep 13, I will get a new Part-FCL licence. Am I correct in assuming that unless the IMC rating is negotiated to be added to a Part-FCL licence (as per Para 7 of the CAA statement), I will have lost the rating? So I don't even get to the 8th April 2014 because I will no longer have a JAR-FCL licence from Oct 13.

Will the CAA reissue a licence before the 5 years is up? In other words - issue it now (1.5 years early) and date it 5 years hence?

And what is a "UK non-JAR-FCL/non-Part-FCL" licence?

Thanks
Nik

I hope to have mine completed by the end of March but the date i have been told is you need to get the application into them 10 days prior to the 30th June.

I don't know Beatnik, I've just got my IMC rating, but if the worst comes to the worst (which I doubt) and the IMC rating goes for those who hold it then in all honesty, if you get caught out in clag and know you can take an ILS into your airfield are you going to say 'Gosh no, this is now illegal?' Sod that, and let them try and pin something on me.

Well, I think I got away with it on my last flight ... I turned a corner, she asked me whether I thought I was downwind or base leg, I told her, she asked me which direction I was going to land in, I replied "into wind as per the DI bug". She didn't say anything else. I'm sure that conversation wouldn't have been necessary if she'd spotted me setting it :)

You see, joking apart, there's the absurdity of it. We both laugh at not letting the examiner spot you setting the wind on the heading bug but in reality you would. I know I would. I always when flying normally have the wind set on one of the OBS's, which is virtually the same thing.

Thanks Thing - you're absolutely correct, these are valuable skills we are learning - and when the proverbial hits the fan, one will do whatever is necessary to recover the situation. I'm sure if you request an NDB/DME approach on airfield, the controller is not going to start quizzing you on whether you have an IR or IMCr

DEFINITIONS
 

A licence issued before the days of JAR-FCL when the CAA stopped issuing UK PPLs. However, the CAA intend to reintroduce the UK PPL (for holders of JAR-FCL or part-FCL licences) as a supplementary licence within which any non-EASA ratings may be included.

However, there may well be yet further changes to come. Increasing concern has been expressed about the Byzantine complexity of the €urocratic nonsense coming our way soon - for example the fact that there will be some 6 different types of private licences for fixed wing aircraft alone....:\

pre-JAR-FCL lifetime UK PPL
JAR-FCL 5-year PPL
lifetime NPPL
lifetime part-FCL PPL
lifetime part-FCL LAPL
post-JAR-FCL lifetime supplementary UK PPL

Thanks, Europe.......:mad:

... UK BCPL exercising PPL privileges
UK CPL, ditto
JAR CPL, ditto
UK ATPL, ditto
JAR ARPL, ditto
ICAO licence, exercising UK PPL privileges


So that's another 6 !

Each with subtly different medical and recency requirements, each permitting you to fly the same aeroplane in the same airspace.

G

I wonder if the aeroplane knows any different?
Or, for that matter, if the aeroplane knows if it's EASA, Annexe 2 or otherwise?

Perhaps Bernoulli and his mate Galileo might be influenced by all that paperwork, give up and go home...

"Tell you what, Orville, let's just stick to fixing bikes"
"You betcha, Wilbur!"

All in the name of standardisation........

I was a guest speaker at an International aviation conferance last year and my presentation was on the changing face of European licencing (very dry I know) and the audiance of people from around the world were gobsmacked at the state we have gotten ourselves into!!

Actually he did - Galileo got so hacked off and threatened by the church's views on his (entirely accurate) deduction that the earth went around the sun, and the moon around the earth, that he retired to a small island and did materials research, which seemed pretty safe and uncontentious.

Much of the principles we still use for aircraft structural analysis were determined by Galileo, because it got him away from all the paperwork and politics that his astronomy was causing.

G

Genghis - ridiculous bureaucracy is not a new invention, neither is an inability to listen to a different perspective... I don't know whether EASA are aware of these traits.

Galileo?

E pur si muove!

passed my IMC today..

finally. Best get it sent off quick...

Whopppeee..
:)

Well done that man! :D:D:D I think I was more relieved to get that out of the way than the PPL skills test.

Whilst I understand the frustration that generates the hyperbole, the fact is that, once the dust settles, we will actually have:

For EASA aircraft - LAPL, PPL, CPL, ATPL, all valid indefinitely

For non-EASA aircraft - NPPL, PPL, CPL, ATPL, all valid indefinitely

Whist the record shows that I am not exactly a supporter of EASA or the CAA, I somehow don't think the world is going to end as a result of having parallel licensing systems for EASA and non-EASA aircraft.

As for the recurring discussion about surreptitiously bugging the wind - WTF? As an examiner, I don't care what the bug(s) are set to provided that they are in accordance with any requirement of the Operations Manual and that the aircraft is flown within the declared limits. In the case of a forced landing, I cannot recall any substantive requirements regarding the heading bug and any examiner who sought to base a fail on the decision of the candidate as to where to set the heading bug would richly deserve the Reg 6 appeal that should immediately follow as well as the resulting loss of examiner privileges.

Well done :ok:
got mine done last Wednesday (14th), application was with the CAA next morning :cool:

Just to add to the other posts, sent my IMC paperwork off to Gatwick on 28/2 via registered mail, got it back (after a chaser phone call - they said they had a bit of a back log...) from the CAA via FedEx 21/3. All good.... now just need to keep it current....

Here's a licence renewal / rating attachment / licence availability dilemma I have, loosely based around the IMC.

My situation is;

Currently hold a JAR-FCL PPL

2 yr revalidation by experience due 16 May, all hours achieved so will get the certificate signed off at the weekend.

I'm taking the IMC Flight Test on Saturday (24th) so should be in a position to have this rating added then.

5 Year Renewal required by 7 June.

Medical Expires end March (booked medical for 28th).

I Must be in posession of my licence by 13 April to take to US for recreational flying (Flight Review due as well, it never rains but it pours)

Also considering getting a night qualification between 29 March & 13 April.

Given the transition to EASA licencing on 8th April, anyone got any suggestions (gratefully received) on when to apply for renewal or have the IMCr added & whether or not banging in the NQ overcomplicates the timing issues?

Answers on a post card would be great - I'm tempted to just have the IMCr added pronto (although I think I need my licence for the medical so will have to check that point as it would leave very little time to have the rating added & licence back by 13 April)

enq :confused:

Get there early! Everybody ahead of you as you go though that door at 8:30 will cost you an extra 30 mins waiting ...

You shouldn't have to send your (JAR-FCL) licence with the IMCR application - see last page of the application form:
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/SRG1125FF.pdf

Think I'll give them a chaser call :rolleyes:

Not sure if this is the correct thread but this has just appeared.

IN-2012/052: Recognition of JAR-FCL Pilot Licences by the UK as of 8 April 2012, with the entry into Force of Commission Regulation (EU) No. 1178/2011 (The EASA Aircrew Regulation) | Publications | About the CAA

SGC