I know many members will have their IR’s through the ‘N’ reg route, and I have always believed (and still do) that the American system is much more practical than the european system. For example (I believe) you get some questions on how to operate a radio without having to study the theory of radio. This got me thinking about when I was doing my ground school for the UK CAA/IR, back in the 80’s. I got out my old study material on the radio section. At the back of each book are sample questions, one of which I will now quote. "Question No8 –
Convert the following wave lenghts into frequencies and state the frequency band to which each belong:-
(1) 3,500 metres
(2) 15 metres
(3) 35 centimetres
This was a nightmare for me as I am not a mathamatician. Fortunately my son is, so he coached me me on maths, 10 to the power of etc. Eventually after many headaches I was able to do the conversions. Guess what? I didn’t get one question on this subject during the exam! How I got through the ground school I’ll never know, but it just goes to show how far the CAA/JAR bods will go to dissuade people from getting an IR. The British approach is especially keen on on “Intellectual rigour”.
I do hope the Competence Based IR will invest in updating training in the use of glass panels and autopilots. While most of my flying has been using a six pack, training has not kept up with what modern avionics can offer.
So much of the training is still devoted to NDB holds and approaches – bless – I am not sure when was the last time I used one practically (outside of the annual IR ride), possibly decades ago?
My very anecdotal sampling of the IR holder population is that most of it is FAA IR, and most of the non FAA portion are UK IRs who did it using the old 700hr route (which avoided doing 50/55hrs at an FTO but was terminated by JAA in 1999). However there is also the German IR group which I know little about and which I would think would be “very proper” i.e. not much N-reg, but maybe that has changed in recent years.
The wavelength to frequency conversion is actually simple: divide the figure to be converted into 300. So 300MHz is 1 metre, 600MHz is 0.5 metre, etc. As someone who was a radio ham in Czechoslovakia (OK1OFA) in 1968-69 and built pirate radio transmitters in the UK in 69-71 this was OK, but as you say it is hardly relevant. The three answers are (1) long wave (2) short wave (bizzarely called “HF” in the UK and probably in the USA) and (3) is IMHO ambiguous and I think they are looking for “UHF” (857MHz) but it is borderline microwave.
There was much more horrid stuff in the JAA IR exams however than the above (I did the 7-exam FAA to JAA IR conversion route) and I think the Met and Air Law contained the most utterly irrelevant garbage. Garbage which follows no easy formula and just needs to be memorised. Now, Met is so important but with the help of probably a load of people who never flew a plane they managed to compose an almost totally useless syllabus. At the time I wrote up a survey of the IR options around Europe here and in there is a lot of pisstaking of the almost completely useless exams and how to take the piss out of the question writer by e.g. going for the answer with the largest number of characters 
The problem is that the main classes of people who cannot see the uselessness of the material are
and so the whole system hangs together… If everybody coming out of it had to fly non-deiced SEPs around Europe, to any real schedule, and there were no internet forums, many would be dead soon enough.
I think the CB IR (if/when it arrives) will have been a huge achievement, compared to what it might have been – largely through the abolition of the 7 exams for conversion candidates. Against the backdrop of European-elitist anti-American prejudices it is a massive political achievement.
But I must remind people that it is still a huge retrograde step. You (if FAA) may be able to get it converted with just an oral and a flight test, but you now have to revalidate it every year, which will cost a minimum of about £150 with a freelance IRE (~£250 with a CAA or industry FE), plus the cost of the flight (anything up to £1000 if having to rent a twin), plus whatever the CAA charge for what is now the DfT Article 223 permission if N-reg (maybe £100) unless you do it outside UK airspace. So you are looking at a few hundred quid a year at least, to carry on doing what you did with the FAA IR for nothing (flying 6 approaches in the last 6 months).
As with so much in human activity, we get threatened with some horrific torture and then when we get just 20% of the horrific torture we feel better off! I am sure the Romans used the same trick to push through unpopular measures.
It remains to be seen how much of the N-reg group is going to convert. A number I know have chucked in IFR altogether.
For ab initio IR candidates, the CB IR question bank will perhaps be 50% of the size but still without an online QB it’s going to be very hard work. So the online QB availability will be vital. Throw in the fact that very few FTOs will be doing the CB IR for private pilots (CPL/IRs still need to do the full 14 ATPL exams) and most will be looking at a hotel stay – just as at present. So much more work remains to be done.
those who run the ground school FTOs (mostly non pilots, or pilots who never flew anywhere for real)
Peter, Pro Pilot in Coventry are mainly ex services flight crew or practising commercial multi crew. Stapleford has affiliated with them and Pro Pilot appear to do a good job of highlighting how the ‘knowledge’ is relevant in Class A aircraft operations.
In some cases the ATPL material has become more relevant, in others they appear to have slimmed it down. Fifteen years ago you had a paper on electrics, today, with glass panels, 787 events, etc, there are only a total of six questions linked to electric systems in the fourteen exams.
I do hope the Competence Based IR will invest in updating training in the use of glass panels and autopilots. While most of my flying has been using a six pack, training has not kept up with what modern avionics can offer.
Look at Part FCL the AMC and see if you can find an IR syllabus. The JAA never produced one so there was nothing to copy, there has never been a published IR syllabus. Why should that change in the near future? The IR Coutrse is Test driven; you have to complete the mandated hours and pass the test!
Proposed changes to the Air Traffic Structure (FAS) over the next 5 years will necessitate different IR Skills; the removal of beacons, NDB and VOR are part of that Strategy; there are no signs of any changes or coordination of the training required from any of our regulatory agencies.
