IR Flight School recommendation

2) It's not school-related - it's CAA stuff - you'll have to demonstrate it on check-ride. ADF is mandatory in IFR aircraft in EASAland. BTW I used ADF/NDB yesterday for en-route navigation since my GNS/NAV1 is at service and it was not bad at all: departing VFR, picking VOR radial, turining towards NDB following QMD 060, passing it and follwing QDR 050, switching to approach NDB and performig non-precision approach ILS w/o GP (since my NAV2 doesn't provide glide path info). Doable.

How can you call yourself a proper qualified IR pilot if you can't do a NDB hold & approach? It's not the fact that it's useful but the discipline of doing it that counts! Back in the 'good' old days +/- 10secs back to fix was required. Do I hear 'flak'?

ADF is mandatory in IFR aircraft in EASAland.

That cannot be true in that broad sense. There are many IFR approved aircraft without ADF by now in Switzerland. I've personally flown a C172SP with G1000 without ADF under IFR.

I personally did, though my aircraft still has an ADF receiver, both my initial checkride and the last yearly checkride at Friedrichshafen EDNY, and there's simply no NDB around. And even if there was, I would likely have been criticized by the expert if I didn't use GPS as backup for the NDB.

Doable.

Last time I was in Croatia, I got a direct to Sali NDB soon after handover from Venice, that was more than 100NM away from Sali. Yet, I could reasonably receive Sali only about 30NM away. (The reason was that there was interference from another locator beacon in the vicinity of Pula)

Preferably school where NDB no longer required

That is certainly not possible in the UK, but (reportedly) Fly in Spain (FIS) at Jerez used to do it that way. I know of 2 or 3 pilots who did a totally NDB-less FAA to JAA IR conversion there, in 1 week. However I have recently read somewhere that FIS is now UK managed in which case it will probably use UK examiners so that advantage may be lost.

FIS is not to be confused with FTE (also at Jerez) who were always UK run.

Egnatia at LGKV in Greece may also offer something more "relaxed" although I am sure they will at least teach NDB stuff a bit. I've been there twice but not recently. There is a cheap Thomson flight to LGKV from EGKK, though I think not in the winter.

I used ADF/NDB yesterday for en-route navigation

That's not too hard.

What is hard is NDB approaches, where you (in theory - realistically the examiner usually turns a blind eye to this) are supposed to be within 5 degrees of the inbound track before descending from the FAF. Try doing this at a coastal NDB... and to compound things, when you get the bearing error going off to one side and getting bigger (typically at 2-3D) you are supposed to track the track on the way down, not do the sensible thing and just hold the heading until the damned thing settles.

The "famous" NDB holds don't need such accuracy. There have been many myths going around about the accuracy on the inbound track (and how long before the fix you have to be within say 5 degrees) but these were the creations of the FTO industry; they were not written standards of the CAA IR test. The hold just requires situational awareness and under pressure it's easy to screw it up a bit. Again, the FTO industry developed loads of bizzare "gate" methods for doing it "perfectly" and you could spend months learning those...

The other thing is that the CB IR is now a step closer and may be available before next summer. IF you have IFR competence and some instrument time from something previous (e.g. the IMCR) then that will save you time and money over the only current option which is a straight 50 hours dual (some of that can be done in a sim). That's a decision you need to make.

If you have no IFR experience then you may as well just get on with it ASAP; the eventual difference may not be great... At (then) age 45, I took 20hrs to do the IMCR (min 15), 25 hrs for the FAA IR (min 15, 40 hrs instrument time required), 22hrs for the FAA IR to JAA IR conversion (min 15). I think there are far fewer sky-gods around than one might think reading certain flying chat sites

Do I hear 'flak'?

You will soon, at this rate

Show me the UK CAA reference for the accuracy back to the fix... I suspect it never existed. I know for a fact that every FTO I looked at was teaching to "CAA requirements" which nobody remembered ever existed. According to one ex-FTO IRE I fly with, it was done to, ahem, maintain standards (like the 170A "flight test"; another UK scam).

There are many IFR approved aircraft without ADF by now in Switzerland

When I researched the equipment carriage regs in 2005, I found Switzerland allowed a US-style GPS-for-ADF substitution. Also a Swiss pilot I know has done his JAA IRT recently and the examiner got him to fly NDB ops using the GPS, which is completely sensible but very unexpected. But then Switzerland is not in the EU...

But then nobody ever enforced the long standing Cirrus policy of selling planes without an ADF or DME, which were so obviously illegal in many contexts (e.g. doing any Eurocontrol IFR flight in UK airspace ). This continues to suprise me and I wonder if there is a reason why nobody tries it.

Yet, I could reasonably receive Sali only about 30NM away

Yes; this is common in Eurocontrol flight, where ATC routinely use navaids as virtual waypoints regardless of the DOC, e.g. VORs from 250nm away, etc. That is why GPS is the only way to do European IFR. But that isn't the question here which is the traditional JAA IR...

What is hard is NDB approaches, where you (in theory - realistically the examiner usually turns a blind eye to this) are supposed to be within 5 degrees of the inbound track before descending from the FAF. Try doing this at a coastal NDB...

Did that at LDSB in full IMC with overcast almost at minima and posted pic at EuroGA :) Doable but not pleasent experiance :)

I recently did an IR with Jim Thorpe of Rate One Aviation. Don't be put off by the fact that the web site doesn't mention flight training: Jim is close to getting FTO approval from the CAA (in case you're wondering, my training with Jim was done through another FTO, as he was still in the process of gaining approval for Rate One). He also has a Redbird full-motion sim that was recently approved - I think it's this one and it's the first full-motion sim in the UK.

To your specific questions:

1) Jim has now bought a TB20 for training, and I understand is going to fit an Aspen panel.

4) Having spoken to a number of other recent IR students, it seems that Jim's approach is quite different, because he has lots of real-world IFR experience and is happy to share it with his students. Most FTOs that offer IR training are aiming at the commercial world, and the instructors often have more experience of test-preparation training rather than what happens once you get your ticket. Jim talks about airways route planning, the gotchas that ATC can spring on you, making weather decisions, and a whole load of other useful stuff. In fact, the raison d'être of his school is to turn out PPL/IRs.

3/4) I can promise you some genuine IMC, assuming the weather plays ball. On one occasion Jim had me perform an RNAV approach on partial panel, in reasonably convective cloud. This is of course not part of the test requirements, but Jim likes to throw in some curve balls from time to time. (He did in fact give me back the full panel, briefly, as the convection was making it very difficult to hold height on partial panel; but he took it away again once we descended out of the cloud). I can tell you that was fairly hard work, and I'm glad my TB20 has a backup AI!

2) I'm afraid you will need to learn the ADF, at least if you are training in the UK. But it's actually quite an interesting challenge, although I suppose it doesn't have much real-world relevance nowadays. Having said that, I ended up doing some ADF tracking the other day, when ATC sprang a little "track 180" surprise on me, as I figured it would be easier than re-programming the GPS into OBS mode just for a few minutes. (As an aside: does anyone know if going to OBS mode just after takeoff would have lost the rest of my route plan on a GTN650?)

If you want to talk it through with me, get in touch through Peter and I'd be happy to chat about it.

DMEarc, I would not make the "NDB approach" a criteria. It is really not such a big deal to learn to fly an NDB approach, and also it is very good training to understand wind correction, wca and many other things ...

But then Switzerland is not in the EU...

Weren't we talking about EASA or JAA? Not the same thing as EU AFAIK

does anyone know if going to OBS mode just after takeoff would have lost the rest of my route plan on a GTN650

OBS suspends the flight plan sequencing, it doesn't delete anything.