IMCR and then CBIR, or CBIR direct (was: IR vs CBIR)

And even more so for the BIR, which has no minimum hours at all. Sadly, EASA only, not for UK :/

Shame the CAA doesn’t allow you to just ‘hire’ an instructor to teach you a course on your plane at your convenient location. It has to be sponsored by an ATO

Same for the PPL, in all of Europe, and been thus for at least 40 years. Revenue generation.

They don’t offer the CBIR. As according to them it’s not a proper IR and is inferior.

Twats. It’s actually the same thing in all relevant ways.

they want you to write a cheque out for 55 hours

It takes almost everybody at least 55hrs anyway (hence the BIR is largely pointless for most people). The only difference is that some may have unlogged experience, which is wasted, but you can argue the same for the PPL.

40 years ago there were no DTOs or ATOs in France and you could do the TT now called PPL with any qualified instructor either through a club or individually.

Paradoxically the requirement for the training to be via a “school”, and the minimum hours requirements, are much more damaging at the PPL level than at the IR level – because some 99% of pilots never go past the PPL.

In Europe all the stuff is to protect CAA revenue streams, under the guise of maintaining standards. And the IR is supposed to be especially thus since in Europe it is assumed you want to be an airline pilot.

Peter wrote:

It takes almost everybody at least 55hrs anyway (hence the BIR is largely pointless for most people).

This I don’t understand. Precisely IMCR / BIR allows you to log IFR hours while being alone / on trips, then get the CBIR as it was meant (based on actual IFR time plus a little time at ATO). Doing the same trips / IFR time with an instructor with you (including hotel, etc.) is unimaginably more expensive and inconvenient. For the BIR (EASA only, maybe it’s possible with IMCR to some extent), you can even do most of your practical training on X-Plane with an instructor on the other side of Europe. I’m not saying you don’t need some actual IMC and instruction hours in an aircraft, but I think it’s really useful to drill all the procedures / panel management / ATC intereaction, for just a few hundred euros of setup.

Until recently there has never been a revenue stream for the DGAC from licencing.
Last year was the first year I have ever paid for a licence or addition or change to it.
That’s at PPL IR MEP level.
Bizarrely I had to.pay €80 for my first ULM licence.🤔

Any rating which allows hours to be accumulated informally is a good idea. My comment was on the total time it takes somebody to get proficient to pass the IMCR or IR test (they require the same skill if taught properly i.e. to be useful to you).

I’ve heard stories of some young person doing the IR, from nothing, in 20hrs, but I would be amazed if this person had no “aviation exposure”. My son could knock off the EASA IR in 20hrs but he’s had 100s of hours exposure beforehand, including e.g. flying (as a “passenger”) all the way EGKA-LESU with me just doing a bit of the radio.

Maybe France differs historically (very likely) but today all schools pay licensing fees (as do all maint companies) to their national CAA – in Europe. Not in the US (I believe 145 companies do pay to the FAA). I do know that in the 1980s or before you could get PPL training with an FI who appeared to be freelance but actually was “nominally attached” to a school. This was never possible with the IR.

BTW the UK CAA has just upped its IR test fee to a cool £1000. So you want to pass 1st time

The IMCR is handy and actually a lot of UK IR holders (who were forced by Brussels and later the UK to get the UK IR) will be dropping their UK IR because they can fly “VFR” (VMC/IMC as required) in UK D and G to the mid Channel boundary and then fly 100% legally on their FAA IR This saves the UK IR annual test which is a hassle: you have to book two approaches at some airport, and even though nowadays it can be done 100% freelance it is still not as handy as the FAA IR 6/6 rolling currency.

Yes you should never got flying to fly a procedure until you can fly that procedure in a sim at home. You are just wasting your money otherwise. Very little is learnt while flying, in terms of IFR procedure understanding.

“BTW the UK CAA has just upped its IR test fee to a cool £1000. So you want to pass 1st time”

For which the examiner gets 300 quid and the CAA bank the rest.

And you get told there is no examiner available so you do all the ringing around then tell the CAA which examiner is free.