Anybody in the GA business knows how to make the IR more accessible: bring it a lot closer to the FAA route. Yet that is exactly what most of Europe is so against. It is against the “freelance” process, it is against letting the exam papers out “into the wild”, etc. It’s about protecting the FTO industry. And, to be fair, private IR clients are probably way under 1% of the total ATPL-FTO pipeline contents, so the commercial incentive is negligible.
I have to say, if the BIR as described above existed today, I would definitely go for it, or have already done it.
Why have a CB-IR allowing free lance instruction and 10hrs in an ATO, and a BIR with no hours but in an ATO ?
I am pretty sure all ATOs will declare training programmes with say 30 hrs, and everybody will have to do these 30 hours (at the ATO 
).
And why forbid BIR to LAPL ? They are not ICAO anyway.
Is the BIR non-ICAO?
Of course it is sub-ICAO.
Peter wrote:
Is the BIR non-ICAO?
Yes. AFAIU because of the lack of flight time requirements. The TK is said to be broadly similar to the FAA IR TK.
Unfortunately, the flight time requirements are not the problem – because nobody achieves an “IR” in less than about 40hrs anyway. Especially those who have the time and money to actually fly somewhere with it when they get it; these are not 21 year olds, and they need more time. Well, the exception is someone with a lot of aptitude plus unlogged flying experience plus probably a lot of PC home sim time; these people were very poorly served by the rigid “must stuff 50hrs in the logbook, all in an FTO” JAA IR.
The problem in Europe, as I keep saying 
is the “peripheral stuff” like the runaround to get the exams done, the runaround to get an FTO (within say 2hrs’ driving) to accept your plane for training, the runaround to get the checkride…
It is like a PPL school/club advertising a PPL for 10k. This being based on 45hrs, which perhaps 95% of people don’t achieve, and of those with enough time and money to do any flying, probably 99% don’t achieve it. The UK average is c. 60hrs. So the 10k PPL is actually 15k. Of my PPL group, about 20, only 2 were still flying a year later.
So people say “the BIR is great; they have reduced the hours; this will save me €xk” but actually almost nobody will achieve it in that time.
Anyway, Europe is a well defined region, due to avgas, overflight permits and other hassle, most countries immediately outside it being hazardous to land in, etc, so a Euro-only IR is ok.
So what would the cost be? About the same as “full” ir anyway?
The major part of the cost of an IR is flying time, with an instructor in the RHS the whole time. Some can be done in a sim but you still pay for the instructor. This cost will depend a lot on how good you are.
Mandatory classroom time is the next item. Exams can be a fair bit but a long way down the list. The CBIR should make a saving there.
The big cost is putting your life on hold while doing it, and that is where freelance options are beneficial. Or being able to do it via a local facility.
What would be a typical price for an ‘instructor only’ hour if you were doing the IR in your own plane?
zuutroy wrote:
What would be a typical price for an ‘instructor only’ hour if you were doing the IR in your own plane?
I charge £25 ph flying and £15 ph briefing and £20 ph sim. I keep it low because I was one of the architects of PB-IR and really believe in the concept and want to do what I can to keep it viable.
