By the way, many countries have this, as it is an ICAO standard. Germany just ignores it.
It’s also an EASA reg. that you have this! It’s in part-NCO (and NCC, CAT, SPO) – NCO.GEN.135 (a) (11)
Yes, German pilots are now required to carry it.
No. NCO is not yet in force in Germany (opt-out).
Just you wait for August 25th, 2016..
The FAA BFR is a training session by an instructor who isn’t qualified to give you a check ride, nor is he required to evaluate your flying. He is just supposed to give you one hour of ground instruction and one hour of airborne instruction, with any focus that seems appropriate.
Ah thanks, then that is exactly as it is with EASA FCL. Good example of what can happen if one argues out of a position of ignorance (in terms of not knowing the details), btw :-)
The best solution for light aircraft maintenance is on-condition, plus annual inspection including AD review by an authorized mechanic. The Byzantine system of individually approved maintenance plan, 50 hr + annual + who knows what inspections, plus separate ARC to certify paperwork just seems nuts to me. Its a little airplane, not a nuclear reactor. If a dysfunctional regulatory hierarchy created the need for such a complex system, then I think any rational person would say that problem needs to be fixed first.
I thought so, too, for quite a while. But in the end, I understood that the EASA system would enable the mechanic to do, what he does best: Work on the actual aircraft and not work on paper. In fact, the guy who does the paperwork doesn’t need to be a mechanic after all. He is fully qualified if he can read and write and add and subtract. And the mechanic does the maintenance on indication or the regular service needed. The system is described, that the Paper guy just tells the owner:
2There’s an AD coming up, you have to do this by this and that date." The owner then does it or pays someone to do it, let’s a CFR have a look at it. The CFR then signs the logbook and/or a form that goes to the paper guy and that’s that. Of course, many CFRs are the paper guy in persona, but that is not necessary. There are organisations where you just fill out online forms and get an automated heads up, when a scheduled maintenance is due. I can clearly see the benefits of the system, even for small aviation.
Again, agreed: many of the components and much more maintenance should be done more on indication basis and it has to get easier to become Part66 CFS for light aviation. That’s no question.
Mh, if I had to operate my planes in that kind of setup, I wouldn’t own one never mind two. Too soul draining for me – I would move on to other things. I don’t have any recurring paperwork in relation to my aircraft.
MH
I said nothing about the CBIR, that is one of EASA’ s few better ideas.
The issue is with the EIR.
Who thinks it is a good idea to get into IMC without a rating that lets you do an instrument approach ?
The UK IMCR enabled PPL’s to do instrument approaches, it’s not about stopping European pilots from doing something, it’s about getting the best for European pilots and clearly the UK IMCR is safer than the EIR.
The aim should be about getting the best ideas working……… Not getting the EASA committee to agree on a path that arrives at the lowest common denominator decisions for reasons of national pride or a not invented here attitude.
The UK IMCR is a tricky one.
It was always stupid of EASA to try to kill it, which was 100% totally in the name of European standardisation.
But it would not fit into the wider European picture because it is almost only the Class A ban which distinguishes the 15hr IMCR from a full 50/55hr JAA IR. But most of Europe doesn’t have Class A (at piston-GA-relevant levels) and that makes the IMCR political dynamite, undermining the IR training business. Only UK and Italy have lots of Class A.
The CB IR brings the full IR closer to the IMCR but there is still a long way to go to match the sheer accessibility of the IMCR (e.g. being able to do it at any PPL school) which makes the FAA IR so accessible in the USA. But, yeah, all this has been said a million times 
Peter said it re extending the IMCR to Europe. Does not work politically.
There is one interesting twist to this however. We all agree that enroute IFR flying is very easy and takes but a few hours to “learn”. So if the IMCR takes 15 hours – or, let’s say 20 hours in reality – and you add maybe 5 hours to add the enroute skills, then why the hell does it take 50 hours or more for the IR in Europe? One could say that the UK proves that 25 hours is enough to learn it all.
As always, I think it has to do with what you define as the minimum legal hours. Call it 20 and you will have most people ready for the test at say 25hours. Call it 50 and most people will need 60 hours to be ready – for the same test!
Schools will always make you do the minimum, plus about 20% on average (just because they can).
Highly hypothetical of course, but still interesting.
The issue is with the EIR.
Who thinks it is a good idea to get into IMC without a rating that lets you do an instrument approach ?
This is an argument I keep hearing over and over but it’s just assuming people are morons. The value of the EIR is flight planning and a way to split the training in two steps. Who said you had to be in IMC at any time when flying IFR. If I can read the METAR for my destination and alternate today, I can keep doing it with an EIR. The EIR/CBM is the only good news coming out of EASA in years.
