Just to confirm: it is no longer a legal requirement to have an ADF fitted to an aircraft for ANY IR test in the UK. The ADF is now dead.
What is the examiner going to do if the airport where you do your skill test doesn’t have an NDB?
I don’t know. It hasn’t happened to me yet…
Or does every swedish IFR airport have NDBs?
Not all, but most do. Full procedure ILSs are usually based on an NDB racetrack.
An ADF is still a legal requirement for IFR in Sweden, btw.
Unless desperate, I would never fly an NDB approach for real in poor visibility unless I had a slaved gyro.
I don’t understand the hysteria regarding NDB approaches and holds…especially with an RMI…no more difficult than a VOR….just less accurate
The inaccuracy of the ADF bearing (even on an RMI) makes NDB approaches difficult to fly because – especially at a coastal location – you get a huge swing between about 2D and about 5D. I recall 20-30 degrees at Shoreham, Lydd, Manston, Bournemouth, etc. Now, a smart pilot will establish the heading at say 7D and just fly on, but you aren’t supposed to do that in the IRT. You are required to track the bearing as indicated. Also, if more than 5 degrees off at the FAF you are supposed to go around; in reality this is virtually impossible so the examiner has to “look away” at that point.
So the Q boils down to how sure you can be the examiner will let things go. I am not exactly keen on failing tests because of the resulting hassle, never mind the costs.
In reality of course everybody who flies for real will fly an NDB approach using the GPS (probably in the OBS mode) but that isn’t the point, and it isn’t going to be available officially until the UK gets an official GPS substitution rule, or GPS overlays, or whatever, and none of that is even remotely anywhere near the official horizon. So the IR examiner has to play the official game. And the FTOs have to train people to pass the test.
This could be circumvented at certain Spanish and possibly Greek FTOs (where NDBs were never examined so little time would be wasted trainig them) but the Spanish one is now run from the UK (according to UK chat site postings by a well known “GA personality”) so I guess the option is lost. The Spanish option was popular for IR conversions which could be completely done in 5-7 days. I visited the Greek one but in the end could not be bothered to spend time (a lot more than 7 days) down there.
Peter, I don’t understand the hysteria regarding NDB approaches and holds…especially with an RMI…no more difficult than a VOR….just less accurate
Valerio, I’m a relatively new FAA IR holder and will need to do the EASA IRT at some point….I had planned to do an assessment at Rate One Aviation at Gloucester last week but couldn’t make my diary work….I guess I will need a bit of EASA education and a few mock flight tests first….so I am planning to do that this year…but even if I was confident in my knowledge an skills right now, I don’t think the UK CAA is setup yet to allow direct booking of an IR examiner…and I’m not sure they even have the correct forms ready…although I understand guidance material has been sent to the IREs already
going back to the thread subject, there are ~30000 European citizens with FAA IR who will not be able to fly IFR in 9 months: I’m curious how many among them are planning to complete the “easy” EASA IR conversion in the next 9 months? Any experience to share from EuroGA members?
the UK seems even worse with its requirement (as far as I understand) that you be established inbound in an NDB hold/racetrack at least 30 seconds before passing the fix.
That may be historical but it certainly wasn’t the case in 2011 when I was doing it. At that time it was mostly an FTO invention, like the “gate” system which was never an IR test requirement. If you search my 2011 writeup for “gate” you find some references.
The UK also required, until very recently, an ADF for all IFR in CAS.
Not at all… I did a skill test in Sweden to renew my lapsed IR one month ago and NDB holds and approaches were certainly part of it.
What is the examiner going to do if the airport where you do your skill test doesn’t have an NDB? Or does every swedish IFR airport have NDBs?
There’s only one NDB left in Switzerland, in Bern, LSZB. I don’t particularly like to go there, ATC slots are included in the price, and if you’re lucky strip searches as well. So I tend to always go to Friedrichshafen EDNY, just because it’s closer to my homebase and much less hassle. There’s no NDB anywhere near, and furthermore it’s no longer required to even have an ADF installed.
I’ve never flown NDB holds, that seems to be a british peculiarity…
Not at all… I did a skill test in Sweden to renew my lapsed IR one month ago and NDB holds and approaches were certainly part of it.
On the other hand the UK seems even worse with its requirement (as far as I understand) that you be established inbound in an NDB hold/racetrack at least 30 seconds before passing the fix.
To answer Achimha, there are many reasons to get San Marino registration. One is that I have UK (EASA) PPL + standalone FAA IR and the only way for me to fly in Italy IFR is 1) either with an N-reg, but they tend to be grounded for months by the Italian police on the stupid assumption that N-reg=Tax-elusion (see http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130517/private-jets-seized-italy-tax-fraud), or 2) T7-reg (which has all the advantages of N-reg, plus others, like the possibility to avoid VAT on maintenance costs and VAT+Excise Duty on Avgas, i.e. less than Mogas price :-). Of course I went for T7 (btw, to register November I believe the cost is not much different than 10k, overall). Even my previous plane was T7-reg and I flew everywhere in UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Swiss, etc… without problems (San Marino is part of the European Customs Union). As a byproduct of being T7-reg, I get to wait till end of 2015 or 2016 before potentially deciding to take the EASA “easy” IR conversion exam (I don’t want to be the first :-). However, as already mentioned, for the purpose of this thread, nobody needs to change reg, we just need to find a cheap, credible, knowledgeable, non-EU Operator.
likely to involve NDB holds and approaches
I’ve never flown NDB holds, that seems to be a british peculiarity, and Valerio doesn’t sound very british to me…
