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IR holders: Would you ever go back to VFR-only and, if so, what would change?

Timothy wrote:

At least the exams are much more accessible now than they were when you last did it.

I would just order a distance learning course, throw all the binders into the paper recycling bin and just click through the question bank until achieving 80% correct results. As you are certainly still current with the subjects, this shouldn’t take much longer than a couple of weekends. And for the practical part I guess it is worth talking to both FTO and authority if there is no way to get some credit for your previous experience. If you are lucky the whole thing is not going to cost you much more than your yearly checkrides would have.

EDDS - Stuttgart

I found the CBIR padpilot books helpful actually. Much better than the material of the provider. I actually remember reading interesting stuff on weather that hadn’t seen anywhere else.

I did the IR, and bought a suitable plane to use it, because work and other commitments often mean I have fairly limited flexibility in when I fly. And I have to say it’s achieved its purpose. But it’s then about the destination, choosing ones that are difficult or impossible through the low cost airlines. The flying itself is often rather boring, especially when in IMC or above a cloud deck. Even on a beautiful day, the view from FL150 over northern Europe is not that exciting.

With retirement not too far off, I’m thinking that I’m likely to give up the IR and return to visual flying. Timing won’t be so important – if the weather is poor, extend the stay, or delay leaving home. Just as important is the type of airfield visited. I have to say that I find the typical European airport with instrument approaches has a poor attitude to light GA, especially when it has the occasional commercial flight and likes to think of itself in the same bracket as Heathrow or Schiphol. We’re tolerated, at best.

I started flying in microlights, which gave much more scope for visiting smaller, generally more welcoming airfields. To be able to visit this type of place again, (instead of typically 1000m+ tarmac), I’m thinking about learning to fly an autogyro or a heli. Different, but maybe more interesting to fly at 1500’ and, more or less, land at will.

TJ
Cambridge EGSC

Peter wrote:

the old 700hr route (which was the route used by most UK CAA IR holders who did it decades ago) is long gone.

Wasn’t the 700 hour route more to do with commercials than the IR?

EGKB Biggin Hill

I did my PPL IR through the old UK CAA 700hr route. In theory no training was mandated, you could just turn up and do the test. Obviously I did do training but there was no requirement to use any type of school.

Whenever I found myself in a group of “old UK CAA IR holders” (no offence intended but I was usually the youngest one present, with my FAA IR and me in my late 40s back then) nearly all of them turned out to have used the 700hr route.

For any experienced pilot, especially with the IMCR, this was a huge plus. The FAA IR is even better, with the ability to do everything including a CPL/IR totally away from any fixed establishment. in fact @David here did his IR on a trip around the USA.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

in fact @David here did his IR on a trip around the USA.

You can do that here in Europe as well. Just take an instructor along who has the necessary time (and can live by being paid only for two or three hours of work per day).
Personally however I think that the learning effect on this kind of trip is next to zero because it mainly consists of straight and level flight. It takes less than an hour to learn how to fly straight and level, the rest of the trip is wasted.

EDDS - Stuttgart

Interesting thread. Different perspectives of different kind of people with different mission profiles living in different climates and in different airspace structures will obviously yield many different point of views.

I will stick to my IR, but if someone would point a gun to my head and say ‘choose IR or VFR-only’ I would answer VFR in a heartbeat. Of course it’s easy for me to say, living in a country with 300 days of CAVOK per year, but to me 90% of the fun of flying is enjoying the views and being able to be relatively (or totally) free to just fly wherever you want, and interact with ATC only when needed. Flying in the soup is usually boring, and while an approach to minimums may be exhilarating, it also resembles a computer game.

Again, to each his own!

Private field, Mallorca, Spain

You can do that here in Europe as well.

Not easily… one UK op was banned from training outside UK airspace.

Flying in the soup is usually boring, and while an approach to minimums may be exhilarating, it also resembles a computer game.

I doubt anybody disagrees, but in Europe IFR also gives you blue sky conditions while VFR gives you a flight down below the clouds and battling with weather and nontransponding low level traffic etc. It is really perverse… The way ATC treats GA changes totally (in most countries; probably not in Sweden ) once you are “IFR”. CAS disappears, etc…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Worst aviation decision I ever took letting it lapse. By the sound of it, I’ll have to resit all exams and do quite a lot of flight training to get it back.

You do have to resit all exams, but it doesn’t have to be “quite a lot” of flight training. My IR had lapsed for 18 years and I had only flown at all the last one of those 18 years. It took 8 hours of training to get my IR back. But then I had spent lots of time on my own on a PC simulator practising IFR procedures.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden
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