CBM IR

Fantastic! I completed the CB-IR route (conversion from FAA IR) last May, as well as the MEP rating. Now I am starting training to add ME to my license. I’ll read it with great interest.

Thanks Matt. Plodding through the TK at the moment, nice to hear you are so positive about Aeros. Congratulations on the first time pass.

Congratulations on your achievement.

I see that we got the MEP about the same time (May 2015). I did mine in a DA42 at Air&Compagnie at Toussus (LFPN). There is also a Tecnam twin at some other flight school which I observed with great interest as it was the first time I saw it.

About the same time I did the MEP skill test, I also converted my FAA IR to EASA – actually just a week before my MEP skill test.

And now I am setting out to do the 5 hrs training required to “upgrade” my IR to IR. I have not flown the DA42 since my skill test, and I still find asymmetric flight a little bit challenging. On the other hand I am very current IFR but I have not previously flown IFR at that flight school, and therefore not familiar with their idiosynchrasis. So I am a little bit apprehensive of how I will cope with asymmetric approaches in IMC. Time will tell. I have my first training session Sunday.

Now that you have the IR-ME, do you automatically also have IR-SE?

@Aviathor Remember that when bringing the good engine to full power, a smooth motion matched with yaw compensation makes it much easier to maintain your heading. I have seen people in such a rush that they firewall it during a simulated failure while descending on the approach and end up 30 degrees off and rolling off the wrong way.

Good article by the way.

Balliol wrote:

Yes, a ME-IR covers you for SE as well. However, if you renew it in a single it will be restricted to SE from then. The entry in my licence is IR-SP-ME Class/SE.

I was under the impression that in the EASA texts, it was the other way around. That you need a separate initial test for SE-IR and ME-IR, but that you can then cross-validate the SE-IR in one flight when doing the ME-IR renewal. And if I remember that correctly, in the UK you can request to get the SE-IR on the same initial test as the ME-IR, but it has to be specifically requested. In Switzerland, they would not do this and require you to do separate flights.

But this is only what I remember without having checked the regulations again. If I’m wrong, surely somebody will correct me.

@Aviathor How do you get along with Air & Complications? I seriously thought about doing my CBIR with them, but the woman that I was in contact with there was so unhelpful and cocky that I decided that I would take my money elsewhere. What really put me off was the non-negotiable 35 or 40 hour block of “ground instruction” before they would even let me touch the controls of a simulator or an airplane.

A&C have worked out very well for me. They have been very helpful in dealing with the NO CAA for designating the MEP examiner and then sending in the paperwork and additional documents asked by NO CAA, although that is clearly additional work for them as compared to following their established procedures with the DGAC.

I did not use them for the IR. For that I found an examiner myself and converted on the basis of my existing FAA IR and 50+ hours experience as PIC under IFR.

For the MEP there was 11 hrs of ground instruction. I do think it was a little bit overboard – especially because a number of these hours were dedicated to explaining how to work the G1000 although I had a couple of hundred hours of experience flying with it.

For the IR I will do a couple hours of ground instruction and then move on to the simulator for a couple of hours, and then two sorties in the airplane of 90 minutes each.

I suppose that as an ATO they are obligated to follow the program which has been approved by the DGAC. I also suppose that their training program for the CB-IR is not modular enough…

Balliol and JasonC, thanks for your advice. I look forward to getting started and getting a feel for it.