I have used Calais a lot both in a MEP and SEP with both CAA instructors and FAA in a Cirrus. As I mentioned elsewhere, Jersey and Guernsey are very accomodating and good value. Down south, Southampton are a waste of space, but were very good, Exeter is fine, and so is Newquay, both very accomodating, but avoid Bournemouth at all cost.
Indeed, but that would not have been ab initio training.
I have just contacted someone else “in the system” and he remembers something along those lines but is not aware of a current regulation prohibiting it.
Personally I have never heard of such a regulation but then I don’t run a school. This is the sort of thing which CAA employees make up on the spot and if you try to fight them they will not license your school 
Oh yes, I recall always being told that, its obvioulsy long been doing the rounds. Did it perhaps start before we were all EASA, or has that got nothing to do with it?
Only FTO rumour from way back when but the CAA wouldn’t approve your manuals if the training was outside the UK.
So it may not have actually prohibited but if you didn’t follow their guidance you wouldn’t get approval.
Peter wrote:
The CAA will not condone water crossing in a SEP
for approved training.
So how do the likes of Jersey cope? Or even the IOW… 
Regards, SD..
I was unable to practice some instrument approaches this week as the 3 airports within a sensible distance of where I’m based were all to busy.
Two airfields within a similar distance are in the process of gaining GPS approaches however one of them which is aiming for approval to conduct one approach every two hours has allready stated that they will not allow traning approaches.
The other airfield that’s hoping to get them has said that they will only be available for home based aircraft.
Is this correct? Can they say this?
Time for the approach element of revalidation and renewals to be allowed on basic simulators.Poor availability and in most cases high cost on make a compelling case for this.Especially given the very lax standards now allowed to the airlines on their all simulator revalidation.
I am in my instrument training right now, and we also suffer from this. At the DFS airports, you usually only get one approach per airport and then you have to wander off to the next airport for the next approach. This means we are spending quite some time travelling at 125 knots between ETMN, EDWI, EDDW and EDDH. Others usually are too far away for a round-trip training flight with such a slow airplane.
From what I have heard, the larger pilot schools suffer from this as well, but with a faster plane, you obviously have more options involving less straight & level segments.
But I also have a tip to share. During the weekdays, when the military does not only man the tower, but also their own radar sector, they are more than happy to give you multiple approaches at their field, because the ATCOs need the practice as well. If I can arrange to fly during the week, I usually benefit very much from the lesson, as the field has two ILS (one DME-based and one marker-based), and an NDB approach. Technically, it also has two TACANs on top of that, but they are of little use to us, of course.
If staffing permits, they also like doing PARs with you, including simulated no-gyro-ones.
And even better, since the military’s flight plan system isn’t directly interconnected with the DFS one, they usually have no problem with pop-up IFR, als long as you stay within the military areas of responsibility. The military themselves do pop-up-IFR pretty often, so they are accustomed.
Maybe this helps someone looking for a weekday training field in northern Germany!
Two airfields within a similar distance are in the process of gaining GPS approaches however one of them which is aiming for approval to conduct one approach every two hours has allready stated that they will not allow traning approaches.
Who is imposing that one every 2hrs limitation?
It sounds like fiction because it doesn’t sound like a planning permission limit, if there is no limit on VFR activity.
The other airfield that’s hoping to get them has said that they will only be available for home based aircraft.
Which is this airport? That is completely nuts.
They are paying upwards of 30k per runway end, and they just want to burn this money?
I have discovered that phoning my local ILS airport and booking and approach tends to produce a NO, because they allow only 1 booking per hour!! Apparently everybody who books it (it tends to be schools; I suspect individuals don’t practice because with the EASA IR you don’t need currency; you just have the annual test and there aren’t enough FAA IR holders around) books multiple approaches. But a lot of people are late or never turn up, and often don’t bother to phone to say they are cancelling. I cancelled a flight today due to wx and apparently I was the only person, out of a number who asked for their planes to be moved out, to phone the crew; the others just didn’t bother to turn up. So it is better to just do a local flight and call them up. This has produced a ~75% success rate recently. However I also do just one approach and then get out like a bank robber at the DA, instead of wasting their time.
" The CAA will not condone water crossing in a SEP for approved training."
All Student PPL solo cross-country from Inverness has included Kirkwall, Orkney, with a crossing of the Pentland Firth.
When PPL training has been done at Stornoway, I heard they did a cross-country across the Minch to the mainland.
I did the Wick – Kirkwall then back to Inverness solo as a student on 14/3/87, in a C152, at the time of year when the sea is coldest.
The options would involve more dangerous flying across mountains.
