they were much less busy.
I am not sure that’s the case universally. Of the ones I have seen numbers for, they have gone down, over 20 years or so.
What is on the rise is a “cannot do” / “computer says NO” attitude, delivered along with the fashion for “risk management” MBAs and similar junk “education”.
One would think airline pilot training is on the rise, hence the demand for flying IAPs, but a number of big schools have gone bust (Cabair for example).
On reflection, a business model has occurred to me for airfields which have insufficient funds and would like to boost their income.
They could declare themselves open for business for instrument training traffic, in VMC, and charge for people to use their Visual Approaches, or OBS based 2D approaches, and make £25 every 10 minutes.
Obviously it would be see and avoid. FISOs and AG can’t issue clearances, but there are places withvery little VFR traffic during the week where the model could possibly be made to work.
And obviously people would still need some training on approved approaches in preparation for test, but it wouldn’t half take the pressure off those approved locations.
I am not sure that’s the case universally. Of the ones I have seen numbers for, they have gone down, over 20 years or so.
No, certainly not universal, but I did my initial at Southampton, examined at Stansted, I then based my AA5 at Stansted. When I was professional, we trained at Gatwick, Farnborough, Filton and Hatfield.
The world has changed, but regulators have failed pitifully to keep up.
I think there is also an interesting debate to be had about training approaches to places other than a usable runway (I have heard massive arguments for and against..!)
If the current situation ensures for much longer I suspect instructing / examining will just increasingly go feral and do what ever works to try and get the task done, which safety wise will probably end up even more out of rational kilter…
Is there a rule saying that an IAP must be to a runway with a published and currently permitted IAP?
There are multiple scenarios for this e.g.
In the 1970s and 1980s, PPL training was sometimes done away from any school. I guess the FI had an “informal deal” with some school.
Haven’t we got AM radio for that?
I get widely lambasted for teaching NDB approaches in this day and age. But I can do them till my heart’s content at any time close to my home airfield all that’s to the BBC.
Although I’m not prepared to use a none approved approach for tests and I don’t know anyone who does.
Finally one of my local AFISO airfields that a GPS approach was supposed to be installed 5 years ago but might happen this year. Is only allowing one approach every two hours and then they are not allowing training flights. So perhaps not the progress one would hope.
I suppose the other answer is just to walk away from the UK and do the whole thing in France or Germany, where approaches are plentiful.
So much for the DfT and CAA making the UK the best place in the world for GA!
Where’s Grant when you need him 
France is an 400 nm mile round trip from where I’m based. So by the time that’s costed I can’t see there being much of a buisness case for UK GA north of Watford gap.
I am with you when it comes to the CAA as I believe they have performed poorly in this area and sadly they continue to do so.
Do keep campaigning Timothy.
Last I heard, the CAA doesn’t allow ab initio training outside the UK. Has this changed?
I did my ab-initio helicopter PPL in Spain with a UK company a few years ago and AFAIK they are still doing this.
I know some here know the exact position; whether they will post it will be interesting
The Spanish schools are a different thing. They are EASA (or UK CAA) approved schools, run locally. There is some detail concerning the Head of Training who can be based in the UK. One of the Spanish outfits was run out of Austria and they were the better one; the one run out of the UK made everybody bang loads of NDB approaches 
But basically you are doing your training at a Spanish school. And it’s the same with the EASA approved schools in Florida.
There is a well known chap called Jim Thorpe who spent years trying to get the CAA to allow the flying of approaches at say Calais (he was running an IR training outfit, for private customers rather than airline cadets) and he failed to get the permission. But that was years ago. He even posted here once. Maybe he succeeded eventually. It makes the IR quite a bit cheaper and – for customers in the south of the UK – a lot less hassle with booking approaches.
I did an ILS into Lydd today, just by calling them up from 10 miles away. The very nice ATCO squeezed me in, with a quick version of the normal join. Booking it in would have probably been impossible today (Sunday).
