Instrument Ratings...
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Instrument Ratings...
I should have known this or at least been aware of it... but it still shocked me!
Less than 1% of PPL's hold an IR in the UK (CAA/JAA etc)
Around 50% of FAA PPL's hold an IR.
Shurely shome mishtake?
Less than 1% of PPL's hold an IR in the UK (CAA/JAA etc)
Around 50% of FAA PPL's hold an IR.
Shurely shome mishtake?
Cost of doing an FAA IR, about US$4,000
Cost of doing a JAA IR, about US$35,000
In the UK only, there is something called an IMC rating, which is a sort of reduced IR for PPLs, but I'm not sure what the stats are on that - probably, I'd guess, similar to those of FAA PPL/IT holders.
G
Cost of doing a JAA IR, about US$35,000
In the UK only, there is something called an IMC rating, which is a sort of reduced IR for PPLs, but I'm not sure what the stats are on that - probably, I'd guess, similar to those of FAA PPL/IT holders.
G
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Why should that be a mistake?
Spending £16000 or so on an IR rating is not the easy for every pilot flying on Sunny afternoons in perfect VMC, and the FAA IR is about 1/4 of the price.
A big majority of UK PPL holders have an IMC rating anyway.
HB
Spending £16000 or so on an IR rating is not the easy for every pilot flying on Sunny afternoons in perfect VMC, and the FAA IR is about 1/4 of the price.
A big majority of UK PPL holders have an IMC rating anyway.
HB
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but hardly any helicopter pilots have an IR and there is no IMC(H) so the figures are even lower here (and the cost of doing the damn thing even higher than $35K...)
h-r
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There is a thread on 'Post PPL Drop Out Rates' and this is one of the subjects covered.
Its absolutely mad that we charge so much for the IR. I have an IMC but only by virtue that I for it for free by possessing an FAA IR.
Yet again the IR is something the Yanks are leading the way on when it comes to GA.
Julian.
Its absolutely mad that we charge so much for the IR. I have an IMC but only by virtue that I for it for free by possessing an FAA IR.
Yet again the IR is something the Yanks are leading the way on when it comes to GA.
Julian.
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The lack of PPL held IR's in europe is down to a mix of cost and difficulty. european aviation lives in an old fashioned world of elitism and generally does not properly recognise the place of the PPL in the scheme of things. The JAA really only exist to serve commercial aviation and I feel in real terms the PPL is viewed as nothing more than an anoyance that is to be legislated out of existance.
When an IR is made availble to the PPL world that equates to its FAA equivalent in respect to achievability then the uptake will be massive and probably achieve the levels we see with the FAA. But it has to be an IR that has realistic exam and training requirments and is orienated to private aviation rather than a wannabee aiming for the seat of a jet. A single FAA style exam with real world content. The practical aspects of the training are pretty much on par with the FAA if a little long on hours.
I have been doing a JAA IR for what seems a lifetime, the practical has been pretty easy but the time consuming work to complete the exams has been a nightmare. Doing a full time job and studying for ATPL levels of knowledge that are mostly useless in real IFR flying is very stretching. My JAA IR will have take a year to complete at next exams.
When an IR is made availble to the PPL world that equates to its FAA equivalent in respect to achievability then the uptake will be massive and probably achieve the levels we see with the FAA. But it has to be an IR that has realistic exam and training requirments and is orienated to private aviation rather than a wannabee aiming for the seat of a jet. A single FAA style exam with real world content. The practical aspects of the training are pretty much on par with the FAA if a little long on hours.
I have been doing a JAA IR for what seems a lifetime, the practical has been pretty easy but the time consuming work to complete the exams has been a nightmare. Doing a full time job and studying for ATPL levels of knowledge that are mostly useless in real IFR flying is very stretching. My JAA IR will have take a year to complete at next exams.
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flash8
The figures are more or less correct.
In addition to previous posts, the reason for the poor takeup of any European national (and now the JAA) IR is not so much the cost of the flying - the cost of doing 50hrs (55 if a twin) with an instructor, plus other stuff, isn't too important on the scale of the costs of ongoing IFR flying. The main reason for poor takeup is the massive ground school, with a mandatory residential element. As has been mentioned, the UK has the IMC Rating and this gets you into the clouds in the UK adequately. So a full IR is really done for flying into Europe, and the candidate needs to be very seriously motivated. The sort of people who can afford to fly real IFR like that are usually pretty busy, running a business or something like that. It would take most of them years of hard work, in between running their lives, to do the exams. The IR exams are OK for the typical would-be airline pilot who is young and usually has plenty of time.
The 1% or 2% figure is actually much worse than it looks, because (of PRIVATE pilots) most Euro IR holders got their IR years ago, often many years ago, in days when there were easier routes to it. The number of PPL holders who get the current JAA IR is absolutely tiny and much less than 1% (one can see the data on the CAA website).
The CAA license issue data website suggests about 10% of awarded PPLs get the IMC Rating. My own guess is that very few of this 10% actually use it, because of the great difficulty in getting an aeroplane that's good enough for real IFR. And the IMCR is no good outside the UK (except for providing a VMC on top privilege) so it's back to the full IR, whereas an American pilot can do his entire life's flying in the big place called the USA.
Finally, in Europe, only a few countries have an active GA scene. Much of Europe is practically devoid of GA.
So, most people who want an IR do the FAA PPL/IR, and then they need an N-reg plane to get the privileges. Expensive too, need to be an owner, but at least one can get it.
The figures are more or less correct.
In addition to previous posts, the reason for the poor takeup of any European national (and now the JAA) IR is not so much the cost of the flying - the cost of doing 50hrs (55 if a twin) with an instructor, plus other stuff, isn't too important on the scale of the costs of ongoing IFR flying. The main reason for poor takeup is the massive ground school, with a mandatory residential element. As has been mentioned, the UK has the IMC Rating and this gets you into the clouds in the UK adequately. So a full IR is really done for flying into Europe, and the candidate needs to be very seriously motivated. The sort of people who can afford to fly real IFR like that are usually pretty busy, running a business or something like that. It would take most of them years of hard work, in between running their lives, to do the exams. The IR exams are OK for the typical would-be airline pilot who is young and usually has plenty of time.
The 1% or 2% figure is actually much worse than it looks, because (of PRIVATE pilots) most Euro IR holders got their IR years ago, often many years ago, in days when there were easier routes to it. The number of PPL holders who get the current JAA IR is absolutely tiny and much less than 1% (one can see the data on the CAA website).
The CAA license issue data website suggests about 10% of awarded PPLs get the IMC Rating. My own guess is that very few of this 10% actually use it, because of the great difficulty in getting an aeroplane that's good enough for real IFR. And the IMCR is no good outside the UK (except for providing a VMC on top privilege) so it's back to the full IR, whereas an American pilot can do his entire life's flying in the big place called the USA.
Finally, in Europe, only a few countries have an active GA scene. Much of Europe is practically devoid of GA.
So, most people who want an IR do the FAA PPL/IR, and then they need an N-reg plane to get the privileges. Expensive too, need to be an owner, but at least one can get it.
The 50% figure is also a bit misleading - as it happens there was an article on this in Flying this month. Of the 600,000 pilots in the US, many are commercial of one kind or another. (It's POSSIBLE to get a CPL without IR but unusual, and ATP must of course be IR). Of the remaining PPLs, the proportion is about 10%. Still a lot more than 1% of course. Personally I find that suprisingly low, because even in sunny California you really need an IR if you want to be able to plan to fly anywhere ahead of time (versus just deciding on the day).
The theory part of a US IR is a piece of cake - not much more to learn than for the PPL. The practical side of course requires a few tens of hours of flying to get the hang of it, and a dozen or so hours per year of recurrent training if you want to stay safe.
n5296s
The theory part of a US IR is a piece of cake - not much more to learn than for the PPL. The practical side of course requires a few tens of hours of flying to get the hang of it, and a dozen or so hours per year of recurrent training if you want to stay safe.
n5296s
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The theory part of a US IR is a piece of cake - not much more to learn than for the PPL
The FAA PPL written is several weeks revision, starting from a relatively recent JAA PPL holder position.
The FAA IR written is about 6 months' revision, starting from the position of an IMC Rated pilot (who incidentally got 100% in the IMCR exam) who flies a lot and basically "knows the rules" and the way all the navaids work already.
Obviously a very bright but jobless individual with no life can do it much quicker but the above figures are for someone with a job and some sort of life at home, and 100% support from spouse/partner.
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The FAA PPL written is several weeks revision, starting from a relatively recent JAA PPL holder position.
Obviously a very bright but jobless individual with no life can do it much quicker but the above figures are for someone with a job and some sort of life at home, and 100% support from spouse/partner
(having a life, that's a question of definition), but i think most of the other people did...
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Spending £16000 or so on an IR rating is not the easy for every pilot flying on Sunny afternoons in perfect VMC, and the FAA IR is about 1/4 of the price.
My interpolation of the CAA stats suggests that 1/5 to 1/4 of PPL holders have and IMC.
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My interpolation of the CAA stats suggests that 1/5 to 1/4 of PPL holders have and IMC.
Having an IR though is the dogs, transits in class A, airways and a night rating that works in europe and approaches to 200'. If you have the means I highly recommend it.
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You can fly approaches to the published minima (i.e. the IR minima) on the IMCR 
The 500/600ft stuff is CAA advisory only. It's not in the ANO. The CAA is however very naughty to assume this in the IMCR exam questions! The 1800m min vis is mandatory though.
HWD - how do you estimate that 20-25% of holders of (unexpired) PPLs have an unexpired IMCR?
From the CAA Personnel Licensing Stats site, PPL(A) data
http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?ca...68&groupid=559
2000-2001 PPL=2518 IMCR=??? ????
2001-2002 PPL=2295 IMCR=301 13%
2002-2003 PPL=2233 IMCR=337 15%
2003-2004 PPL=2102 IMCR=352 17%
2004-2005 PPL=1913 IMCR=308 16%
What sticks out is the alarming year on year drop in new PPL(A) issues but that's not the issue here.
There cannot be more valid IMCR holders than there are PPL holders, because an expired PPL kills the IMCR too. So the % of valid PPLs holding a valid IMCR must fall with time.
We can speculate how many PPLs who once had an IMCR keep it valid. My guess, from meeting other pilots who fly, is that way over 50% of IMCRs are expired.
The other thing is that the self fly hire scene isn't exactly conducive to somebody maintaining an IMCR. I mean, what can you do in a typical knackered old heap with an IMCR that you cannot do on a plain PPL. Anything that has a horizon, a microlight even, can fly in IMC en-route, navigating perfectly well with a handheld GPS, and there is no chance of getting caught doing it, so there is no incentive to keep the IMCR valid for that. One can also depart "VFR" pretty freely, in the UK. The IMCR is very much for flying approaches legally. What % of self fly hire planes have a fully working VOR/DME/ADF/ILS, FM Immune so you can do it in Class D, and properly tested and signed off so you can bet your life on the ILS (which you WILL be doing)?
I would be amazed to see as much as 5% of PPLs having a valid IMCR.
The interesting thing would be to analyse the "valid licenses" data
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/175/srg_fc...cences2000.PDF
and correlate it with the new license issue data. We could get a reasonable grip on how fast licenses expire. Volunteers?
Example: taking the years 95-97, there was no increase in the # of valid PPL(A)s, yet presumably the # issued each year would have been about 3000. So during each of those years, for everybody who got a PPL another chucked theirs away. What we can't tell is the lag in the numbers i.e. how long people keep it for. The CAA is quite clever in the data they present
Tashi - I can believe you. Total immersion works wonders for the pass rate. It all gets forgotten just as fast, but that's not the point It's obvious that the JAA IR is DESIGNED for airline pilot school type of immersion training, and THAT is why people "with a life" find it so hard to do it.
The 500/600ft stuff is CAA advisory only. It's not in the ANO. The CAA is however very naughty to assume this in the IMCR exam questions! The 1800m min vis is mandatory though.
HWD - how do you estimate that 20-25% of holders of (unexpired) PPLs have an unexpired IMCR?
From the CAA Personnel Licensing Stats site, PPL(A) data
http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?ca...68&groupid=559
2000-2001 PPL=2518 IMCR=??? ????
2001-2002 PPL=2295 IMCR=301 13%
2002-2003 PPL=2233 IMCR=337 15%
2003-2004 PPL=2102 IMCR=352 17%
2004-2005 PPL=1913 IMCR=308 16%
What sticks out is the alarming year on year drop in new PPL(A) issues but that's not the issue here.
There cannot be more valid IMCR holders than there are PPL holders, because an expired PPL kills the IMCR too. So the % of valid PPLs holding a valid IMCR must fall with time.
We can speculate how many PPLs who once had an IMCR keep it valid. My guess, from meeting other pilots who fly, is that way over 50% of IMCRs are expired.
The other thing is that the self fly hire scene isn't exactly conducive to somebody maintaining an IMCR. I mean, what can you do in a typical knackered old heap with an IMCR that you cannot do on a plain PPL. Anything that has a horizon, a microlight even, can fly in IMC en-route, navigating perfectly well with a handheld GPS, and there is no chance of getting caught doing it, so there is no incentive to keep the IMCR valid for that. One can also depart "VFR" pretty freely, in the UK. The IMCR is very much for flying approaches legally. What % of self fly hire planes have a fully working VOR/DME/ADF/ILS, FM Immune so you can do it in Class D, and properly tested and signed off so you can bet your life on the ILS (which you WILL be doing)?
I would be amazed to see as much as 5% of PPLs having a valid IMCR.
The interesting thing would be to analyse the "valid licenses" data
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/175/srg_fc...cences2000.PDF
and correlate it with the new license issue data. We could get a reasonable grip on how fast licenses expire. Volunteers?
Example: taking the years 95-97, there was no increase in the # of valid PPL(A)s, yet presumably the # issued each year would have been about 3000. So during each of those years, for everybody who got a PPL another chucked theirs away. What we can't tell is the lag in the numbers i.e. how long people keep it for. The CAA is quite clever in the data they present
Tashi - I can believe you. Total immersion works wonders for the pass rate. It all gets forgotten just as fast, but that's not the point
It's obvious that the JAA IR is DESIGNED for airline pilot school type of immersion training, and THAT is why people "with a life" find it so hard to do it.
Last edited by IO540; 22nd Nov 2005 at 20:15.
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HWD - how do you estimate that 20-25% of holders of (unexpired) PPLs have an unexpired IMCR?
You don't.
Or do the FAA stats include everyone who's done the required number of approaches every 6 months to remain valid?
So there could be just as many un-valid FAA-IRs as there are un-valid IMCs out there, surely? (Percentage-wise, obviously. In raw numbers I would expect the number of lapsed FAA-IRs to dwarf the number of UK PPLs
)
Last edited by rustle; 22nd Nov 2005 at 21:08.
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Aren't statistics great? They can be bent to any purpose
Typically in the US, of the 600,000 pilots there will probably be a higher percentage of "Commercial Pilots" too. This is becasue the CPL is achievable the same way as the IR is and many PPLs will naturally progress from Private to Instrument to Commercial.....probably for insurance premium reasons or to ensure a long and healthy life if for nothing else (I'm sure the stats would prove CPLs are less prone to incidents).
So you could say that more US *private* pilot (i.e. who is not employed as a pilot) must therefore be a better pilots than the *average* UK pilot who is not employed as a pilot.....follow me? Therefore there must be something fundamentally wrong with JAR, unless of course it is in the name of European protectionism.
Which again is a con. The IR(H) in FAA land can be added exactly the same way as IR(A) in an R22 instrument equipped. If you already hold an IR(A) you need only to do around 15 hours in the R22 and be competent enough to pass the flight test.
Typically in the US, of the 600,000 pilots there will probably be a higher percentage of "Commercial Pilots" too. This is becasue the CPL is achievable the same way as the IR is and many PPLs will naturally progress from Private to Instrument to Commercial.....probably for insurance premium reasons or to ensure a long and healthy life if for nothing else (I'm sure the stats would prove CPLs are less prone to incidents).
So you could say that more US *private* pilot (i.e. who is not employed as a pilot) must therefore be a better pilots than the *average* UK pilot who is not employed as a pilot.....follow me? Therefore there must be something fundamentally wrong with JAR, unless of course it is in the name of European protectionism.
but hardly any helicopter pilots have an IR and there is no IMC(H) so the figures are even lower here (and the cost of doing the damn thing even higher than $35K...)
Since the introduction of JAR-FCL, FI(R)s no longer have to get the Applied IF restriction removed from their FI rating to upgrade, consequently very few of the FIs qualiifed in the last 5 years can teach for the IMC rating.
Less aerodromes let you do IF training so the two things have resulted in a reduction of IMC rating training.
The old UK IR was 40 hours, the JAA IR is 55 hours, everyone said it was too long, but the first time pass rate is now lower that it was with 40 hours. Could it be that more hours are now flown in the STD and less in the Aeroplane!
Less aerodromes let you do IF training so the two things have resulted in a reduction of IMC rating training.
The old UK IR was 40 hours, the JAA IR is 55 hours, everyone said it was too long, but the first time pass rate is now lower that it was with 40 hours. Could it be that more hours are now flown in the STD and less in the Aeroplane!
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I would be amazed to see as much as 5% of PPLs having a valid IMCR.
(It's POSSIBLE to get a CPL without IR but unusual.