Why the UK is the only country with the IMC Rating

@Ibra does the IMC( R ) not require that you must fly at 1000 ft of the highest obstacle within 8km and 2000ft in hilly areas except during take off and landing?

The 600ft ceiling is the aerodrome “VFR licence” minima (which is also recommended as IMC minima), ATO training manuals for these are even higher, 5km vis & 1500ft, this is for a “class G VFR airfield”, except circuits that can done with 1200ft agl, there is nothing stopping you from doing instrument training in a VFR airfield, it is just you will learn in good weather

Yes, once en-route you fly IFR obstacle clearance altitudes then you may land/depart system minima on “ licence IFR airfields”

For unlicensed airfields, not sure what are the AD limits, maybe zero-to-zero? but surely no one does that in training set-up for a rating…

IMCr was 1800m but now 1500m, in slow aircrafts with healthy engines, you can argue that you only need to see your 1000ft obstacle ground roll for a Vx departure

Thread drift but for SEP the IMC test requires a 1,100 foot ceiling, this also is a common SOP in schools – argument it allows reasonable time to pick a field in the event of a forced landing. Not IR or IMC specific, but interesting it is a test condition.

172driver wrote:

Can someone here summarize what the training and skills test for an IMCr entails? I honestly have no idea. Curious to compare (I hold an FAA IR).

Mine took the minimum mandated 15 hours and consisted of:

• Basic instrument flying – straight and level, climbing and descending, turns etc.
• Partial panel – once we started this then ~50% of the rest was done on partial panel, particularly all the en-route and back-and-forth to the approaches
• Recovery from unusual attitudes
• En-route radio navigation using VORs and NDBs
• VOR and NDB holds
• DME arcs
• ILS approaches – perhaps half a dozen mostly at Cranfield
• An SRA at Farnborough
• VOR and NDB approaches simulated around the CPT VOR and the WOD NDB
• The three unofficial instrument approaches into White Waltham: one on each of the two navaids above and one that uses the Heathrow 09L localiser to something like 11.7 DME

Probably about 50% of it was done in solid IMC on non-VFR days (cloudbase <1000), the rest on better days with the hood on after the flaps came up and staying on until minimums such that the entire blocks time less 10 minutes was instrument time. The time in actual IMC was much more valuable.

All approaches were to legal minima (i.e. 200ft on an ILS rather than 500ft) and the required flying accuracy throughout was altitude to within 50ft and heading to within 5 degrees.

There was nothing about weather or controlled airspace. Nothing in particular about ATC, notwithstanding what was required to fly the approaches. All approaches were procedural with it being explained that post-test one generally took radar vectors if available. It wasn’t thought necessary to teach or expose one to radar vectoring, the idea of being told where to fly being thought simple enough. SIDs and STARs as a concept were explained and a few plates shown.

Most of it I found straightforward enough. Flying holds accurately, particularly in non-trivial winds, was ‘challenging’ in the same way that map/stopwatch/compass navigation is when you’re first learning it – not actually that difficult when you apply yourself but requiring a certain degree of focus and staying on top of things. I found that making sensible estimates for wind-corrected headings and timings yielded better results that trying to do lots of mental arithmetic in the cockpit and I certainly wasn’t interested in gates or anything like that, but I was invariably on the right track with the needle in the right place when we came back round.

I would probably fail the IR test if they require you to call out the numbers you’re crunching in your head rather than just fly it by feel and end up in the right place! To my simple brain, wind correction is either a little bit, a fair bit, or a lot. I reason there’s no point deciding on exactly 8 degrees of correction (or whatever) because you can’t hand fly to more than a 2-3 degrees anyway, especially if the air isn’t totally smooth.

All hand-flown obviously. No A/P fitted anyway.

The test is an ordinary departure with the hood straight on. Basic instrument flying to the airwork area, some airwork, limited panel, unusual attitudes, then en-route radio nav to the airport with the approaches. Couple of approaches and go-arounds, then transit back to home base, fly the unofficial approach and hood off when entering downwind in a bad weather circuit to land at 600ft.

Excellent summary Graham.
Almost exactly my experience.

Great summary @Graham, they packed a lot in. RV ILS is probably worth training for, especially as in the real world radar will tend to vector you straight onto the glide slope if you are a puddle jumper, and on ‘a when established descend with the glideslope’ type clearance. They might also throw in keep best speed to 4D. Quite a few case studies of GA pilots getting behind on an RV ILS. Admittedly the training airports will be polite and vector you with 2 nm of run in to the FAF.

Graham wrote:

VOR and NDB holds
DME arcs

I seem to be complete dummy at flying, but even in my 40 hrs. of “full instrument rating” we did not have enough time to get close to proficiency in NDB-Holds or DME-Arcs.

I’m full of respect (and a little bit jealous) for pilots so great, that they can learn these within 15hrs.