It’s an interesting read. They address the main issues which make the European IR so frustrating and so rarely taken up by European pilots. A particular emphasis for aircraft owners.
I am sure the average will take a lot longer than six flying days. I did my FAA IR in 2 weeks and already had a lot of IFR time then. However, I was not “young” then (49) and was not doing it in my own plane; I had to learn IFR in a very basic PA28.
Could be an interesting approach for a setup somewhere in Europe, targeting aircraft owners like this. A business opportunity? Of course the investment is significant, and choice of airports would be critical given the wide variety of operating and cost models in Europe.
There’s a whole load of this type of operations in the US, they only vary at the margins (e.g. bring your own plane). There’s also an outfit that comes to you, Redbird Sim on a trailer and all. However, from what I’ve heard talking to people who have done these courses, while they pass the test, they tend not to feel anywhere near confident enough to actually go out and fly IFR. May well be different if you’re in your early 20s and do nothing else but flying. In our club we currently have two pilots who started one of these courses, found them lacking and are now doing the ‘traditional’ route.
They still have to pass the same checkride with a DPE, no?
Could be an interesting approach for a setup somewhere in Europe, targeting aircraft owners like this. A business opportunity? Of course the investment is significant, and choice of airports would be critical given the wide variety of operating and cost models in Europe.
I think we sort of did that here. That is for a PPL, but the history of IR training ops is not great either. I can think of two UK ones which have folded up recently.
Peter wrote:
They still have to pass the same checkride with a DPE, no?
Sure. However, quite a few of them have a DPE on staff and it’s one thing to pass the checkride (tough as that is !!), quite another to actually operate in the system. Again, I only have second-hand info on this, but it comes from people I personally know, not some internet / social media group.
Sure; however, the training and test always differs from actually flying in “the system”.
Having done the IR in both FAA and JAA systems, I would observe that the FAA IR is a lot closer to the US system than the JAA/EASA IR is to the European system, but there will be plenty to learn in both cases.
Well, unless you did the FAA IR as a long trip around the US (as David – of EuroGA – did) which is very hard to do in Europe due to the FTO-base / freelance restrictions requirement.
I reckon a 6 day IR is possible provided you are well prepared, have almost nothing to learn about “IFR abstracts”, and are a good pilot. Most will take much longer.
Peter wrote:
I reckon a 6 day IR is possible provided you are well prepared, have almost nothing to learn about “IFR abstracts”, and are a good pilot. Most will take much longer.
Agree. I think these fast-track courses should be viewed more as a ‘finishing school’ rather than an ab-initio training. Most require previous IR training anyway, in some cases quite substantial amounts.
Hi all,
I am the owner of IFR6 and have read all these comments with great interest. I have also sent an email to Peter, who kicked this off, and rather than re-write everything, I will just submit what I wrote to him:
“I came across your post from last month about my business, IFR6. We have been around since 2013 and have grown considerably through the years. We will have 42 clients this year and expect to double that next year. Our pass rate is 99% and it has everything to do with using our simulator correctly; that is, for repetition. We are recommended not just by our clients but DPEs, other CFIs, and even insurance companies. AOPA mentioned us in their September 2019 issue.
Our clients come from all over the US, but we also get many from outside the country as well, including the United Kingdom, South America, and Europe, which quite frankly surprises me- I guess people aren’t kidding when they talk about how expensive flight training is in other parts of the world.
I would be happy to answer any questions you or your group has. We currently do two sessions per week and are scheduled through January of next year."
I would also like to address a couple of other comments. First of all, we are definitely more of a finish-up program. Our clients are required to have the written test completed, 40 hours of PIC x/c time, and 10 hours of instrument time already. You are all on the mark when you say this could not be done ab-initio in 6 days.
Secondly, while we do have a DPE that we use most of the time, he is not a “staff examiner.” We actually have three examiners that we use regularly, and all of our clients must pass the same checkride. You must earn your rating with any of them- there are no automatic passes.
Finally, while it is true that a 6-day course will not make somebody a great instrument pilot, the fact of the matter is, no course will do that. The only thing that makes you great is to fly, and you will never be as good as you can be- only experience does that and there is always more experience to gain. What we do is give you the tools to gain that experience.
