so this flight does not improve safety. It just feeds the CAA, via the annual fees it charges to the examiners.
No anual fee to examiners. They pay on appointment and renewal every three years.
Interesting. The CRE/IRR who does my reval says he pays about 5k/year. He can do IR annual revals, PPL initial skills tests, PPL 2-yearly revals, and some bizjet TR stuff.
Initial IRE Course between £4500 and £5000, Issue test £1377 (TRE £1641) payable every 3 years for renewal test, all here.
Interesting. The CRE/IRR who does my reval says he pays about 5k/year. He can do IR annual revals, PPL initial skills tests, PPL 2-yearly revals, and some bizjet TR stuff.
Perhaps your guy is talking about the TOTAL cost of keeping his various examiner ratings going. This might include keeping his own type ratings renewed, and that requires at least 1.5 hours on each jet type for the LPT even if he’s in current practice and has no training.
This is very good news. Does anyone have an idea of the timelines? I.e. how long would it take till flight schools start offering Enroute IR training?
Peter, I have an IRR on my EASA PPL as the CAA messed it up when I added the IR-restricted (Forum doesn’t like Brackets and R in there) so I can re-validate you 
But joking aside:
As your FAA licence will not be valid on a EASA aircraft after 7th April 2015
You can then apply for a “validation” to this for a further year, which might be extended if you can show you are training for a conversion, but worse case scenario 2 years from now.
So for the next 2 years I can practice holding at Bournemouth, Yeovil and Alderney, shoot a couple approaches into them until I can do them with my eyes closed (the usual UK way of training for the IR) and then am I correct in thinking this:
And that is it? I already hold the EASA PPL and plenty of hrs “IFR” time.
I have an IRR on my EASA PPL
So why do you want a IRE to revalidate it? Any PPL (FE) with IMC privileges can do that.
If you are talking about obtaining a EIR or a CBM IR, then its an initial test arranged by the CAA!
The last I read on this is that – in the UK – a freelance IRE can’t do the flight test for any of this. It needs to be one booked via the CAA – as Tumbleweed above states.
It also isn’t clear whether you have to do the conversion via an FTO. Even if you don’t, there is the issue, as always before, that the examiner needs to approve the aircraft, and he may not approve it, in which case you have wasted the ~£800 fee. If you have come to him via an FTO, it will be their business to check the aircraft complies so you have less risk, but you will be far more limited because most FTOs don’t handle private owners. If you have come to him directly (booked him directly via the CAA, paying the fee with a credit card as has always been possible even though very few people knew about this) then he might not like something about the aircraft, the window screens, etc.
A few days ago I spoke to one FTO owner in the north of the UK who is looking at this, and that was his view also. There is a likely business opportunity, coming up to April 2015.
It is also now easier to put a customer’s plane onto the FTO’s “approved list” than it used to be. It used to need individual CAA detail approval but now it only needs the FTO to tell the CAA about the aircraft type and such.
So various things will need sorting out…
My guess is that most conversion candidates will go via an FTO, or via an IR instructor who is very familiar with the whole protocol, because even the best pilots will need training up for the “old stuff” like NDB approaches and holds.
“If you are talking about obtaining a EIR or a CBM IR, then its an initial test arranged by the CAA!”
But then read UK AOPA magazine General Aviation, page 13:
“Part-FCL states that any IRE can conduct Skill Tests for IRs, so any gold-plating by an Authority which attempts to restrict initial IR Skill Tests to its own staff examiners should be robustly challenged.”
I am interested in this interpretation as our “CAA” in Denmark charges eqv. of £750 for a Skill Test, whereas a freelance will take 1/4th of that.
I think the fees for the skill test will not be the big issue compared to the flying training that will be needed. Let’s be realistic, I wouldn’t pass a test now, it was nearly 20 years ago that I did my initial IR in the USA, and I was in my 30’s then, now I am in my 50’s. I will do it, but I plan quite a bit of flying training. Anyone who thinks they can just take a test are either some sort of sky god or are kidding themselves. There aren’t many true sky gods about, and the few I know that perhaps are such beings don’t think they qualify.
