Funnily enough, to get a night rating on a LAPL (assuming you will fly VFR at night), you need to get some basic instrument training on top of the LAPL !
I know this as I had a legacy Brevet-de-Base with a night endorsement from DGAC, the night privilege (- other fancy stuffs: take pax/trial flights) was lost in LAPL translation due to missing basic instrument training (+ upside I can go further than 100km nav), while in the end I had to do basic instrument training to upgrade for a full PPL seven years later (I still left with no night rating as of today 
)
As boscomantico highlight, GA got a lot of concessions (medical, currency, instructors…) on LAPL as it was sold as “VFR only”
Still given it is sub-ICAO, there is not reason can’t have a sub-ICAO IR on top of it to be within national-airspace limitations and/or annex II aircrafts, however, it will gi difficult to have it recognized in other places (given the sheer difference in national rules provisions and airspace structure)
I will not be surprised if the UK CAA decide to allow IR(R) privileges on top of LAPL in UK airspace on easa/annex2 aircraft, but the current number of users suggests it will not be the case…
My guess, currently under the rug: holding LAPL vs PPL is only a medical question, so the real question is will any NAA allow IR privileges without class 2 medical? I guess no one want to open that box yet…
I’m not so sure about all of this.
What the hobby, 100 dollar burger run, pilot needs is a cloud rating. There are alot of these pilots and they aren’t going to shoot approaches down to a minimum but they would use a rating that would allow them to pop through a little bit of cloud or get them on top. It would also help them if they got caught out.
In fact just last weekend I was talking to an hour builder who when on his “CPL QXC” had to fly on instruments for some 10 minutes due low cloud and high ground with nothing more than his PPL instrument training. Yet his origin and destination had cloud bases well above VFR minima – 2000 feet plus. EASA regulations have made this less safe as under the old UK system he would in all probablity have held an IMC rating.
I beilive you can add a “cloud rating” to a sailplane licence and I assume they don’t hold a anything more restrictive than a LAPL medical.
As we stand we have the;
EIR – Which in my opinion is an utterly useless rating to the hobby pilot.
BIR – Again an utterly useless rating to the hobby pilot and for someone who is aiming commercial.
CBIR/IR – Again utterly useless to the hobby pilot although I don’t for one second think this is an utterly useless rating.
Remember Joe Burger run’s aircraft will probably be some flying school hack with with a six pack, Skydemon and a VOR.
Scrap the EIR/BIR and just have a full blown IR and a cloud rating.
Bathman wrote:
had to fly on instruments for some 10 minutes due low cloud and high ground with nothing more than his PPL instrument training.
Did he do the 180 degree turn and yet after that he still had 10 more minutes in IMC? Or did he get get-there-itis?
I have the CBIR, my license says IR, with no restrictions. I can do all minima, fly in all airspaces.
Bathman wrote:
I beilive you can add a “cloud rating” to a sailplane licence and I assume they don’t hold a anything more restrictive than a LAPL medical.
Completely, agree on this, for a hobby LAPL pilot a cloud flying will fits the bill but not for the touring guys who usually end up with big aircraft/airport/airway
Yes, in the UK for gliders, there is some of that in both BGA rules and EASA rules, there is not much fuss on how you do rnav/approach on that as everybody know you will go out soon not far where you went in
In UK/France and many other countries, there is only “cloud flying” in elementary pilot training and many consider it as “instrument rating” where you fly in clouds ocas on your own or under civilian/military radars, without much fuss how you do rnav or get-down as the civiy industry does 
Before anyone talk separation with other traffics, cloud flying ocas with no radar ident is really a matter of personal taste, in practice many manage it with “an RT call in the cloud frequency”…
Bathman wrote:
What the hobby, 100 dollar burger run, pilot needs is a cloud rating. There are alot of these pilots and they aren’t going to shoot approaches down to a minimum but they would use a rating that would allow them to pop through a little bit of cloud or get them on top. It would also help them if they got caught out.
In what sense is what you describe not the EIR?
Dimme wrote:
Did he do the 180 degree turn and yet after that he still had 10 more minutes in IMC? Or did he get get-there-itis?
It usually starts with a 90 degrees turn left or right for better conditions, so a 180 degrees turn will just reset your path
Peter wrote:
Firstly, the IMCR already gives access to some of the busiest airspace in Europe (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Manchester CTRs, for example.)Not really; you have no implied enroute clearance (like what you get on a normal Eurocontrol flight) so you are basically a VFR flight in all but name, subject to the whim of ATC.
I don’t understand the point about being VFR. You fly along OCAS in IMC, you call for an IFR join and IFR approach to an airfield in Class D.
I know that it’s unlikely to happen in practice at Heathrow, but it is certainly permitted by the regulations, and happens all the time a lesser Class D CTRs, such as Southend or Cardiff.
It is a privilege of the IMCR.
There is a massive difference in the implied enroute clearance, but you obviously know that, Timothy, so we must have wires crossed…
Some IMCR people have filed Eurocontrol flight plans, intending to stay in a mixture of Class D and, hey, here we go again about ATSOCAS, Class G, and caused utter mayhem at London Control (I recall reading some stories about 10 years ago) when LC ATC innocently sent them into Class A, which they had to refuse, and since then NATS seem to have taken measures to prevent this ever happening again, starting with chucking out all flight plans which spend no or “too little” time in Class A!!!
The bottom line: any “IR” usable around Europe must have full airspace access.
In what sense is what you describe not the EIR?
You can’t land with the EIR unless conditions are very obviously VFR
To this day LAPL is almost exclusively something the elders get to fly a few years longer. It could also be an easy path “up” from microlight, bit so far I have seen only one person doing that. In any case it is a kind of a sport/recreational pilot license with relaxed medical.
Lets turn the question around. In what way is an IR a sport/recreational license/rating? There are no aerial sports where IR is even remotely required. It’s exclusively a tool to get from A to B in a more certain fashion, thus it has has transportation value, but nothing more. So why should LAPL include IR?
