I find the Flyer forum is more like a very small group of core posters who all know each other and are just there to validate each others opinions.
Never was a truer word spoken 
Peter wrote:
Of course there are posts saying that IFR improves your mission capability but that’s a blindindly obvious fact.
You sort of prove my point rather well right there. It depends on the “mission”. The one and only “mission” for most recreational pilots, is to enjoy their hobby, aviation, any way they chose. That is the only blindingly obvious fact as I see it. If flying across the European continent is what you chose to do, and do it with a high certainty of getting from A to B, then I am sure IFR will improve that capability. This is fine, but there are lots of other “missions” that are not improved by IFR.
LeSving wrote:
It’s not only incredibly arrogant, it’s also plain wrong.
Huh? LeSving seriously, I find this forum to be extremely non-arrogant, certainly much, much more civilized than the Private Flying over on Pprune. As for the IFR situation: I for example do not have an IR and I rent but that doesn’t stop me from doing long trips and commenting here. I certainly do not feel ‘intimidated’ by the presence of people who fly their own aircraft IFR across Europe (or half-way round the world like some on here!). As for posts ‘dying without comment’ – well that has happened to all of us who have started a thread. I actually had a look at the SkiGull thread, but this simply isn’t up my street, so I read it and moved on. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t interested! Let’s keep this forum polite and civilized – it’s one of the very few….
Agree with LeSving. IFR does not always improve mission capability, and therefore not only is the statement that is does, not blindingly obvious, it is wrong.
IFR and my IR provides zero mission capability when it comes to taking the missus for a nice lunch at a grass strip on a sunny day in a Super Cub and chatting to some old guys about their homebuilt or vintage aircraft. Or when taking my nephew for a flight to just mess around.
These kind of statements do provide an air of superiority, which I am not affected by as a IFR pilot myself, but I do imagine that it is a bit of a turn-off for your VFR/homebuilder/microlight/tailwheel/bush/private strip pilot types.
I do like a long thread about Eurocontrol or the G1000 or whatever but I’m sure it is dull for many. How is that group supposed to get a feed/view on EuroGA where they only see the other stuff?
For me, it’s a combination of different things:
1. Language. I am not a native speaker and I am not good in any language at all. To make a long post or trip report, it takes me very long because I have to check and double check my language a lot.
2. I have the feeling I am not able to contribute a lot. What I know is already said when I read the topics and saying things twice had no goal.
3. Time . I can make a trip report of my VfR trip to Istanbul in september or my VfR trip to spain and back this weekend. But it takes me hours and I don’t have a lot of spare time and I do have a lot of other things to do in that same time.
4. I also don’t have the feeling a vfr trip report ( when everything goes as planned or with a little diversion because of the weather) is interesting for the many ifr flyers here who make similar trips but ifr. And mostly, the destination was already one of many pilots before me.
On the other side, I like to read the ifr trip reports myself.
5. Posting on a phone or ipad takes me even longer and when I come back from work and have my computer in front of me. My relevant post isn’t relevant any more, so I don’t post.
Vieke wrote:
I also don’t have the feeling a vfr trip report ( when everything goes as planned or with a little diversion because of the weather) is interesting for the many ifr flyers here who make similar trips but ifr.
Of course it is !!!
IFR and my IR provides zero mission capability when it comes to taking the missus for a nice lunch at a grass strip on a sunny day in a Super Cub and chatting to some old guys about their homebuilt or vintage aircraft. Or when taking my nephew for a flight to just mess around.
I get your drift, Ortac (hey that’s a very IFR nickname ) but isn’t that just playing with words? The term “mission capability” in the normal GA / English language use of it has to mean going A to B and some distance, not popping down the road on a nice day for a lunch.
And nobody on EuroGA has ever said that the latter is not real flying or whatever. I pop down to Le Touquet quite often too. I also try like hell to encourage people to stretch their legs, and I do it constantly, online and offline, and other IR pilots I know do the same. Getting someone who thinks Shoreham to Goodwood is a long trip (yes, there are many, due to the way the PPL is trained, rental constraints, etc) to go to Le Touquet is a huge achievement!
There is a natural difference in the volume of trip writeup coverage: not many people will write about a short trip, which creates a circular problem: those reading will think nobody does them, etc. But we have loads of VFR trip writeups on EuroGA; they tend to pop up mostly in the summer. As the wx closes in, you get more of the IFR stuff…
Due to the large number of “homebuilt”-related threads we have already had on EuroGA, we will create a “Non Certified” forum category, replacing the Bizjet one. If one fits in any more categories, the layout will become cluttered. I will try to collect up the old threads and move them in there.
LeSving said
IF there was a special category for homebuilding, it wouldn’t surprise me it would attract a whole bunch of homebuilders from the US also simply because of the excellent “shape and form” of this forum. There are no European forum for homebuilders.
Good suggestion, and thank you EuroGA for responding. Non certified sounds a bit like non pasteurised, perhaps real ale flying is a better title, or Homebuilt and Permit aircraft, that draws in a lot of the grassroots Vintage community.
Peter wrote:
Due to the large number of “homebuilt”-related threads we have already had on EuroGA, we will create a “Non Certified” forum category, replacing the Bizjet one
WOW 
and thanks
RobertL18C wrote:
Non certified sounds a bit like non pasteurised, perhaps real ale flying is a better title, or Homebuilt and Permit aircraft, that draws in a lot of the grassroots Vintage community.
“Permit” is a UK specific term not used elsewhere. Annex II is probably the most “correct” term, or maybe “Non EASA-Certified”. “Non Certified” is probably OK since most people understand what it means.
LeSving wrote:
“Permit” is a UK specific term not used elsewhere.
Maybe its use in connection with homebuilts is UK specific, but the term (“permit to fly”) itself is certainly used elsewhere – AFAIK everywhere. It means a permit to use an aircraft which doesn’t have a valid CofA.
