A sim does not need to be too expensive. I recently met someone who claimed he had trained in this not too long ago.
One thing that I found interesting was the split of respondents to the previous consultation on the subject.
54% were from the UK. Germany seems to be the other big GA market in Europe, but only 12% of respondents came from there. No other country was in double digits.
I suppose there could be lots of reasons for this, but I think it shows the benefit of the IMC rating (or IRR in EASA terminology). As a result of people having access to a basic IFR qualification which is affordable and where the training is easily available and suitable aircraft available for rental, there is an interest in IFR flight.
If someone gave me a free IR course now, it would be pointless. I don’t know of any IFR suitable aircraft for rent locally (and I’m based at the largest GA airfield in Ireland). So without access to a suitable aircraft my skills would perish very quickly. As a result, I’ve no real intention to do an IR.
It’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Unless lots of pilots do an IR for private flying, the aircraft available for rental or groups, won’t be IFR equipped and schools won’t be bothered to train for the IR (outside the ATPL Courses). But if the aircraft aren’t available and the schools offer the training, then nobody will be interested in doing it!
I googled a the well known schools here. None seem to be offering the E-IR nor the CB-IR; at least it’s not mentioned on their website. I suspect the same will be the case with the BIR unfortunately.
dublinpilot wrote:
One thing that I found interesting was the split of respondents to the previous consultation on the subject.
The big question is how exactly was the questionnaire distributed to pilots in different countries (it only says that it was sent to NAAs). Next one would be how did they deal with pilots that don’t speak English that well. And it would be interesting to see what percentage of licence holders (it wasn’t limited to holders of IR) in each country responded.
Aviathor wrote:
Why does everything need to come down to national identity whenever it concerns the French? As previously stated I believe this is rooted in safety, although foreigners would prefer English for situational awareness.
There have already been accidents (there has been at least one mid-air between two airliners) caused by the loss of situational awareness when ATC and an aircraft were talking in a “non-ICAO” language, and one of the aircraft’s crew in the accident did not speak the national language – due to the loss of situational awareness. So I think it can be argued that safety would be improved by using ICAO English rather than the national language (especially compelling people to use the national language).
I think ICAO languages do include French, and we have to live with that. Obviously this is great for people who speak English and not so great for others 
As someone said, politics is the art of the possible and the ICAO treaty would not have picked up ~200 signatories if all had to learn English.
And it’s obvious that ELP for ATC has been more or less totally swept under the carpet in most of southern Europe.
The thing which seems odd is the legal requirement for a “French pilot” to speak French to French ATC. It is demonstrably bizzare when you consider international aviation where the same pilot must speak English in most places outside France, therefore he can do so.
I got cleared right base at Le Touquet in English at the same time as a French speaking pilot got cleared left base in French. Twice actually, about 10 years apart. First time, an FI was looking out and saw him. Second time, my TCAS saved it and I turned left and climbed rapidly and did an orbit. But that is not in contravention of ICAO (may be an ATC mistake, which is a different thing).
alioth wrote:
So I think it can be argued that safety would be improved by using ICAO English rather than the national language (especially compelling people to use the national language).
Maybe it would improve when there is a non-native speaker on frequency, and likely only in busy areas. Unlikely to affect most IFR traffic since you are much less likely to increase your situational awareness usefully by understanding what is being said to other people.
So that leaves VFR traffic. If everyone flying spoke perfect english, yes, it would probably increase safety. If not, then imposing english might be detrimental to safety, since >90% of the VFR traffic will be more at ease with speaking their own language. For these 90% of the people, situational awareness will be increased if the majority uses their own language. (that’s for countries like France, Italy, Spain, where a good part of people are not very good at english. Not applicable to nordics etc)
One way would be deny those who don’t speak good english the pleasure to fly. I find that unacceptable. It’s not obvious whether this or just banning VFR flight in non native would be more fair.
The other is to allow speaking native language, which I think works
Enforcing native language for natives is weird. I don’t think anyone enforces it anyway so it’s a bit useless.
I don’t think anyone enforces it anyway so it’s a bit useless.
I recall a post here whereby ATC refused to respond to a request for a departure clearance unless it was made in French, just moments after the airfield became FR-only per AIP.
That’s a similar sort of thing, though I agree that nobody is likely to enforce that curious French law, simply because ATC has no way of knowing what passport or license the person up at 2000ft has.
Peter wrote:
I recall a post here whereby ATC refused to respond to a request for a departure clearance unless it was made in French, just moments after the airfield became FR-only per AIP.
They often happily talk to me in English after I have talked to them in French (because of G-Reg). I’ve also switched to english after French because heard english plane nearby and wanted him to be aware.
I find the situation you describe going against some of my priors (but I don’t know a ton), because normally airfields become FR only precisely when ATC is not there (I imagine so that it ensures situational awareness for the vast majority of the users at that time). If that happens, it sounds just a stupid application to the letter of the rules from ATC though. Probably the controller had a bad day with his/her partner :)
Noe wrote:
So that leaves VFR traffic. If everyone flying spoke perfect english, yes, it would probably increase safety.
My point exactly.
ELP level 4 is good enough, and from my experience these people do not understand anything else than rudimentary English, whether they have an IR or are VFR only. As far as they are concerned, they are better off speaking their native tongue
alioth wrote:
There have already been accidents (there has been at least one mid-air between two airliners) caused by the loss
Are we talking CAT here, or NCO/NCC? Are you proposing imposing CAT standards to private aviation that relatively seldom land on the major commercial platforms?
You provide ONE example, but do you have any statistics on how many have bee saved by the fact that they used their native tongue?
Do you really want to destroy private aviation in non English-speaking countries?
Noe wrote:
Enforcing native language for natives is weird. I don’t think anyone enforces it anyway so it’s a bit useless.
I recall a post here whereby ATC refused to respond to a request for a departure clearance unless it was made in French, just moments after the airfield became FR-only per AIP.
