The problem with having a “crap” but official PPL/IR syllabus, and having some sort of add-on voluntary module after that, is that most pilots will not do the voluntary part.
Their view is that
I have heard the above sentiments (all of them) from many people. I may not agree with them all, all of the time, but I can certainly see where people are coming from.
So while the add-on activities are all we have until the official syllabus can be updated (which is what this thread is about, I think), they are not IMHO a good solution. We should seek a modernisation of the official training, or at least a syllabus wording which gives sufficient flexibility to an FTO/ATO which does wish to address the private IFR pilot market.
I don’t think this should be a problem because e.g. it has for years been the case that almost all navigation in the standard JAA/EASA PPL course can use GPS. This means that a customer of a school whose plane has a GPS, or a customer who supplies his/her own plane with a GPS, can get a legitimate PPL with most of the course done with GPS.
I don’t see any reason why an IR FTO cannot teach the modern stuff under the current syllabus. The students will still have to grind through the existing IR exams, and there is no solution to this because they all come from the 1999 JAA ATPL QB. Even the CB IR theory is all from that 1999 ATPL QB (it’s just been reduced from the previous 7 IR exams, but no new topics have been added). So you get the students to grind through the exams, which is easy enough with a usable online QB. Then you introduce the “real” stuff.
I remember that on PPL/IR, there once was an offering for scenario-based training by one of the flying school owning members, pretty much offered at cost [or even slightly below].
I loved the idea (especially if you don’t know the scenario – 90% of problems I had to sort out in the air were NEVER trained in practice, only in theory – alternator failures, vac failures, icing at night when you don’t notice, etc, ).
Never got enough people together / coordinated to make it work.. I think in the end we could not even get two!
The fact is that whatever syllabus you come up with today, 10 years from now someone will say it is crap. Does that mean that the people trained by that syllabus will no longer be capable of flying?
When I got my IR 10 years ago, RNAV/GNSS approaches were not taught. I seem to remember they had barely started to publish RNAV approaches in the US, replacing NDB approaches. TAA systems were not taught either. Now, judging from the contents of the Jeppesen Commercial/IFR and ASI Intrument books, they are. The problem being that all EFIS systems are quite different from one another so you can only teach the general principles exemplified by one specific system in training aircraft. Next question: If you are trained on an EFIS-equipped aircraft, will you be allowed to fly with a six-pack?
The problem is that everything changes at a relatively high pace, so no matter what kind of training you receive, you need to keep up with evolution. Look how we went from national licenses and ratings, to JAR-FCL, to PART-FCL. RNAV has evolved quite a bit over the past 10 years as well with continuous descent profiles, RNP, LPV… So have non-precision conventional approaches with CDFA.
Next question: If you are trained on an EFIS-equipped aircraft, will you be allowed to fly with a six-pack?
I have heard nothing to the contrary so far, but it’s going to be difficult. Much easier the other way round. If you can fly on the sixpack, it should take less than two hours to adopt to glass. Many standby instruments are still conventional, so some training with conventional instruments will always be required.
RNAV has evolved quite a bit over the past 10 years as well with continuous descent profiles, RNP, LPV… So have non-precision conventional approaches with CDFA.
The reality however is that very little has actually changed.
RNP doesn’t exist in any way that affects GA.
LPV is barely operationally relevant in Europe. 1 LPV in the UK, and almost none elsewhere in Europe at non ILS airports that also have Customs.
Continuous descents aren’t available to GA (one can hack something like it when flying to some Croatian island, over the Adriatic Sea, over say 100nm).
GPS/LNAV approaches are flown in NAV mode laterally, with the pilot doing the VNAV. Very simple.
GPS/LNAV+V approaches (advisory glideslope) are handy because they can be flown coupled, but are no different to doing a cont descent manually in the final result.
The pilot paperwork has evolved but not in any “new knowledge” sense.
I have been flying Eurocontrol IFR since 2005 and nothing practical has changed in that time as far as the IFR environment and ATC practices. What has changed includes
There is a lot that could be trained / trained better. What was trained 10 years ago didn’t work then (Eurocontrol made sure of that) but it is still taught now and is even more useless now.
If you can fly on the sixpack, it should take less than two hours to adopt to glass.
Based on my own experience, “two hours” would not be enough for quite a few of us 
Even “bright young eagles” appear to need more:
GLASS COCKPIT TRANSITION TRAINING IN COLLEGIATE AVIATION: ANALOG TO DIGITAL
by Catherine E. Smith (pages 40-)
The reality however is that very little has actually changed.
RNP doesn’t exist in any way that affects GA
For now perhaps excluding Schipol etc.
LPV is barely operationally relevant in Europe. 1 LPV in the UK, and almost none elsewhere in Europe at non ILS airports that also have Customs.
Not true in Europe and the customs thing is only meaningful to UK pilots.
Continuous descents aren’t available to GA (one can hack something like it when flying to some Croatian island, over the Adriatic Sea, over say 100nm).
Why do you say this? CDs are available.
GPS/LNAV approaches are flown in NAV mode laterally, with the pilot doing the VNAV. Very simple.
GPS/LNAV+V approaches (advisory glideslope) are handy because they can be flown coupled, but are no different to doing a cont descent manually in the final result.
They are far far more accurate than most hand flown approaches IMHO.
The problem is that everything changes at a relatively high pace
It’s a first for me to read a sentence like this in the context of aviation
the customs thing is only meaningful to UK pilots.
I beg to differ
For now perhaps excluding Schipol etc.
It’s quite unlikely that this catches on soon, as anything but vectoring is going to reduce capacity dramatically.
Why do you say this? CDs are available
Almost always the only descent that is continuous is the last ~3000ft or so for me. In fact sometimes ATC tends to expect you to do a “point descent” of some 10000ft or so.
They are far far more accurate than most hand flown approaches IMHO.
You seem to be a bit alone with this. At least the authorities think otherwise, ILS still has lower minima than LPV, and most classical nonprecision approaches have lower minima than RNAV approaches.
Of course a coupled approach is more accurate than a non coupled approach, but that’s independent from the navaid used.
I personally, apart from Straubing, have never been to an airport that had an LPV approach but no ILS to the same runway end. Of course this is to be expected, an ILS saves you the obstacle survey when creating a new LPV approach. France seems to be intent to switch off some ILS and replace them with LPV approaches, so we’ll see, maybe in two years the situation is different. Or maybe not.
I have often asked for a CD but never actually got one – presumably because the distance over which one would do it is longer than any ATC sector and if you are at FL180 and they cleared you to 2000ft (the ILS platform) you are at liberty to make that descent at 10000fpm (the requirement to notify a proposed vertical speed to ATC is only if you cannot achieve 500fpm, in theory…… in practice they know most piston GA struggles with a 500fpm climb) and that would cause all sorts of problems, starting with obstacle clearance 
They must have a system for jets who do this as standard, and I have no idea what that is, but as GA the only thing I have ever managed to get is a series of steps. Then, if you “hack” it right, you actually end up descending more or less continuously. This is facilitated by ATC not usually caring about your VS so if you have 100nm to go and dial -300fpm into the autopilot, and keep reminding them for the next step, you can achieve it.
Why do you say this? CDs are available
What ATC phraseology do you use, Jason, since you seem to have no problems? And can you give examples of actual routes?
LPV may become operationally relevant sometime in the next 10 years, especially if the French remove their ILSs. But I can’t see them doing that at the airports that do international scheduled traffic because I can’t see the airlines upgrading to LPV. Even today most airlines cannot fly a GPS/LNAV approach. I am facing an isolated case where Shoreham EGKA says it will get LPV soon (which would make it UK’s second airport only) and that will push me into installing the gear because my ILS diversions are all major hassle.
But in the context of the subject here, the above is not an issue. LPV is flown just like ILS. There is much more wrong with the IR syllabus.
there once was an offering for scenario-based training by one of the flying school owning members, pretty much offered at cost [or even slightly below].
I loved the idea (especially if you don’t know the scenario – 90% of problems I had to sort out in the air were NEVER trained in practice, only in theory – alternator failures, vac failures, icing at night when you don’t notice, etc, ).
Never got enough people together / coordinated to make it work.. I think in the end we could not even get two!
Was that a full official IR course, or an add-on module? If the latter, there would be very few takers, for the reasons I gave above.
If you can fly on the sixpack, it should take less than two hours to adopt to glass.
Based on my own experience, “two hours” would not be enough for quite a few of us
I would definitely agree with that. There is a lot more to flying with EFIS that keeping the blue side up.
Looking back at previous postings I find it somewhat hard to understand what the proposals are for subjects missing in the practical flying syllabus for the IR. Would the following be an exhaustive list of suggestions offered in this thread?
