Great writeup, Niner Mike 
It’s interesting that while Belgium never implemented the 15hr IR conversion route, they enabled one of the very first ever IR conversions via the new process.
UK CAA just published the C-IR introduction rules: http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=33&pagetype=65&appid=11&mode=detail&id=6352
Is that the same as my post #108?
I haven’t checked either one.
No, it’s the procedure how to get it, not the test standards. It basically says that you can now apply for it.
It also says, for non-EASA IR conversions, that a pass in the CBIR exams (whatever they are?) or the normal TK exams relieves the requirement for ithe oral part of the Skills Test
Has anybody seen anything of the CB IR written exams?
All I know is that the questions are a subset of the questions in the 7-exam “PPL”/IR question bank.
relieves the requirement for ithe oral part of the Skills Test
That’s the last thing I would do in the private “PPL/IR” environment, where people actually need to know some real stuff. Whereas people in the ATPL sausage machine don’t need to know anything because the Type Rating stage will sort them out, and anyway they will start off in the RHS.
I agree
It appears that three CB IR ground school facilities are fairly imminent: CATS GTS and Propilot.
It looks like 1000 quid or a bit more is about the going rate i.e. no change since the JAA IR.
There are still 7 exams, which is surprising to me. If the syllabus reduction is anything like what was claimed, and given the overlap between some subjects, it was widely expected that the number of exams would go down substantially. Numbers like 2 or 3 were originally talked about.
One thing which I would suggest people check out before doing these exams is which of the organisations use classroom study material which is aligned with the QB. My experience with GTS (from 2011) was that their classroom+homework material was very different from the QB so you basically did the work twice.
There are still 7 exams
Is this another area of CAA Gold Plating?
The Regulation states:
(21) In FCL.615, point (b) is replaced by the following:
‘(b) Examination Applicants shall demonstrate a level of theoretical knowledge appropriate to the privileges granted in the following subjects:
— Air Law,
— Aircraft General Knowledge – Instrumentation,
— Flight Planning and Monitoring,
— Human Performance,
— Meteorology,
— Radio Navigation,
— IFR Communications.’
EXAMINATION is singular and covers 7 subjects.
I don’t think you need a Nobel prize in psychology to realise that if
then you will end up with pretty much the same amount of work to get through the exams as was the case in the old JAA IR
And if you reduced the number of questions in each exam from say 50 to say 20 (which would correspond to the syllabus reduction that has been touted for the past year or two, and actually published by EASA) and you retain the 75% pass mark, you merely end up in the “HP&L exam” situation where getting 5 questions wrong (easily done on any half bad day) causes a failure, a re-sit, and pushes the whole project back a couple of months (or much more if you are doing it in the winter).
So I have a feeling we have been had… Nothing has changed, the online QB is the only practical way to do this, and you better find an FTO whose homework material is not the 1950s ex RAF stuff (which probably rules out one particular one I know).
