Thanks for all your messages, they are really helpful. But I’ll still not entirely clear. I’ve understood that I need to get “full” IR rather than the restricted UK only IR. But some people do the restricted IRR first then move to full IR. Or they can do the EIR.
So what’s the difference between IRR and EIR?
And why not just do the full IR from scratch? Wouldn’t that be simplest?
I suppose I should check what my school offers.
Is a night rating also recommended?
Amateurish wrote:
Is a night rating also recommended?
@Amateurish, yes! Do the night rating in winter, whenever you could. It is hard to do it in the summer – airfields close too early for that.
Amateurish wrote:
I suppose I should check what my school offers.
Usually, schools do only IR(R) night and complex conversion, for other courses you have to go to a (somewhat specialised) ATO.
Amateurish wrote:
Thanks for all your messages, they are really helpful. But I’ll still not entirely clear. I’ve understood that I need to get “full” IR rather than the restricted UK only IR. But some people do the restricted IRR first then move to full IR. Or they can do the EIR.So what’s the difference between IRR and EIR?
EIR – Enroute IR, IRR – IR Restricted
EIR: UK-only, No end-point IFR, but you could airways in the UK, or fly outside CAS, but no approach/departure procedures. Requires full 7-exams after a formal theory course (normally, 8hrs remote these days). 15 hrs min at ATO. After that you progress to full CBIR with no extra theory
IRR: UK-only, All flying except Class A airspace, requires just one exam at your local school. 15hrs flying at your local school. Requires full theory as above to upgrade to CBIR.
And why not just do the full IR from scratch? Wouldn’t that be simplest?
You mean do just 40hrs with an IR instructor? Yes, you could, nothing is stopping you! But theory takes forever, plus most people want to fly some IFR before that. It also allows you to get experience of flying IFR PIC. Pretty much any IFR flying except in Class A and you could only use it in the UK, same as EIR.
Just a side note, my understanding there was not a single EIR issued by UK CAA since it was introduced…I think in EuroGA, there is one single pilot from Belgium or Netherlands who has it?
In France, DGAC issued about 15 EIR in total, a friend had one and he struggled to make it work (you can’t fly on Z & Y flight plans in Paris, ATC always clears him “malgré-lui” to fly SID & STAR)
The EIR is dead, and was always completely useless anyway because of the need to fly SIDs/STARs under VFR which is completely ridiculous and everybody who actually flies IFR “in the system” always knew it would never work 
For a UK pilot, you can do the IMCR / IR/R which is very useful, and gives you a 15hr credit towards the “full” IR. Definitely do this.
There are several paths to the “full” IR:
As a brief post, I would suggest you do this
BUT any “full IR” needs access to a decent capable plane. This is because IFR around Europe is not viable much below about FL100 (yes I know Sweden is different ) and you soon discover this when developing IFR routes acceptable to Eurocontrol. You can do it in a PA28, just about. And you generally need oxygen, not least because at the levels where you can get routes there is often cloud and any cloud will be below 0C (even in the summer) so you want to climb above it, and rapidly you are into oxygen territory. This lack of access to decent hardware is one of the reasons why the full IR takeup in Europe has been so poor. You can fly vFR on the cheap but you can’t do IFR (I don’t mean IFR in UK Class G which is basically VFR ) on the cheap.
The details of all this then get, ahem, detailed. For example the CBIR can be done with 30hrs with a freelance FI (has to be IRI or FI-IR) and that saves a lot of money – if you can find such a person… There is 15hrs of credit from the IMCR, too. It gets mind-boggling…
I have a son (25) who is doing this right now. Has the PPL, NQ, IMCR, an FAA 61.75 piggyback PPL (because he borrows my N-reg TB20), and is flying all the time, getting experience. He will do the CBIR when he gets around to it. But he will probably do the 13 ATPL exams instead of the 7 CBIR exams because that opens up the route to a full UK CPL/IR, which then just needs doing the CPL (which is some “easy” VFR flying with an FI) and an airline job.
I learnt to fly for the same reason you give – some trips.
Just a short question out of curiosity. From the Bosco Norway/Sweden thread, he landed/departured IFR due to ocean fog. Could this be done with a UK IR-R ?
IRR is fine as long as visbility is 1.5km but fog is defined as visbility less than 1km: you are in Cat1 ILS with 550m and coupled AP territory…
On coupled ILS flown by a certified autopilot with 800m RVR, there are empirical evidences that IRR pilots are not be able to see the runway or xmas tree at 200ft DH while IR pilots can on hand flying, I personally can’t see the runway with less than 2km visbility when I look ahead from 200ft on first attempt (unless runway infrastructure is Cat2 ILS with all lights and FALS ON during day or it’s night IFR with lights ON) but for some reason I consistently see it when going missed and passing overhead, the 2nd approach attempt after the first go-around works like a breeze !
The 1500m min vis for the IMCR departure is not an issue in practice, because most of the time you are departing from a Class G airport and then you have this i.e. nobody will care, nobody will know what the pilot interpreted vis was along the runway, and in seconds you are out of it 
Also you don’t want to depart anyway, IR or no IR, if you can’t see more or less the whole runway (vehicles, animals) so e.g. a 400m vis (the general min for the IR) will be a no-go.
Obviously an arrival is a different situation, which is why “fog” is a most serious scenario, IR or no IR, especially as (a) it tends to be widespread so your favoured alternates are gone too, and (b) it is usually poorly forecast as to both arrival and dissipation.
Peter wrote:
IFR around Europe is not viable much below about FL100 (yes I know Sweden is different ) and you soon discover this when developing IFR routes acceptable to Eurocontrol. You can do it in a PA28, just about. And you generally need oxygen, not least because at the levels where you can get routes there is often cloud and any cloud will be below 0C (even in the summer) so you want to climb above it, and rapidly you are into oxygen territory.
I’ve heard you and others say this before, but in my experience it’s an exaggeration. I’ve been flying IFR in Europe for a little over a year now (and for 20 years before that in the US as I’ve stated previously), with 40 hours IFR and ~10 hours logged in actual IMC, flown in all seasons in NL, DE, BE, LX, FR, PL, and LT. Never picked up any ice, and my highest assigned altitude was FL110 to get above the restricted areas in eastern France. I’ve also never had an issue getting a route out of the autorouter. At least half of those IFR flights would have been impossible under VFR, and a few of my VFR flights would have been safer flown IFR.
While I’d certainly agree you need a capable airplane to fly IFR, the reality of Northern Europe is lots of low-level cloud for a lot of the year. For a large percentage of the time the IR is useful for getting to sun on top and back down again. I’ve still not flown to the UK, so maybe things are different there, but my experience says the IR is vital for actually traveling in Europe with any degree of reliability.
arj1 wrote:
Airborne_Again, EIR as well? It still exists in the UK
I stand corrected. I thought that the UK scrapped the EIR along with the EU, but apparently not. But I agree with Peter that the EIR is pretty pointless. Possibly a combo of IR(R)+EIR could be useful in the UK.
Peter wrote:
There are several paths to the “full” IR:BIR – quite new
Has the UK CAA decided to adopt the BIR, then? I thought not.
