So there is zero chance of the IMCR being accepted around Europe generally, ever, because it would totally undermine the IR system.
No, but because it’s a very specific UK solution to a very specific UK problem. It simply doesn’t make sense anywhere else. You can – and I have – happily fly across Europe VFR in and out of CAS. It’s only the anal UK airspace that segregates everything.
While the E-IR isn’t a bad start, I cannot really get my head round the prohibition of IFR approaches. Higher minima – ok, if you must. But this whole ‘VFR-IFR-VFR’ malarkey doesn’t make much sense. At least not to me….
They presumably did not want sunday pilots in slow SEPs to clog up the terminal areas under IFR.
They presumably did not want sunday pilots in slow SEPs to clog up the terminal areas under IFR.
Who does? :)
Bosco, I get that point, but there are ways to keep the riff-raff away from REALLY busy airports, e.g. mandatory handling, very steep approach / parking fees, etc. Many (if not most) European airports are far from saturated with CAT. One always thinks LHR, FRA, MAD, MXP, CDG. Fine, these ones are. But there are many, many more, that see one or two CAT movements a day. If you want to know where they are, just pull up a Ryanair route map. There they are, in their forlorn glory.
As an aside – in the US you don’t even need an IR for the busiest airports. A plain-vanilla PPL does the trick, even at places like LAX.
I did not say I agree. Just how this presumably came to be.
In the process when the EIR was created, some ANSPs even made open comments in that direction.
In the process when the EIR was created, some ANSPs even made open comments in that direction.
I wonder what they will say if EIR pilots start flight planning in the way suggested by Pilot und Flugzeug….?
I have – happily fly across Europe VFR in and out of CAS. It’s only the anal UK airspace that segregates everything.
But not into IMC. This is the difference.
I think that the people who say they have no problem with CAS access under VFR are, with all due respect 
not flying in the very pro-active way one does with an IR and oxygen.
I know how VFR works – I did VFR all the way down to S. Spain and Crete in 2002-2005. I also know that you spend a lot of time in cloud… Today, a large bit of France (not sure how big exactly but probably all that’s served by Paris Control) bans VFR above FL115. Basically they ban VFR in its Class D (FL120-FL195) which is the prime space to fly at if you want a nice comfy flight in sunshine and blue skies, above the clouds.
One can fly pretty well around France up to FL115 but I also know from flying there IFR at say FL100 (my normal IFR level if the wx at FL100 is nice) that flying below where I was flying would just stick you straight into cloud.
There is a lot of variation around Europe in the way this works, and the EIR will clear up the mess because you will have a straight enroute clearance.
BTW even my old VFR trips were done on oxygen, in all cases. Either due to military areas I wanted to overfly or due to terrain.
Another thing, which I believe What Next once mentioned, is that the weather seems to be changing. It is pretty clear to me that my old VFR trips were dead lucky with the weather. The moment I got the IR, the weather got worse and continued to get worse. I am not sure it is getting worse right now (2014 was actually a great flying year for me, with maybe 180hrs, but that is probably because I have had great people to fly with and great people to meet up with, which for me is what flying is mostly about) but 2014 has presented really hard weather which would have pretty well killed mid-level VFR, leaving just low level VFR below the cloudbase, which is possible most of the time, if you have steel balls and a clear return-to-base policy.
but because it’s a very specific UK solution to a very specific UK problem
I would not describe the IMCR in that way.
It is often said that the UK has exceptionally bad weather but that’s simply not the case – well not when you look when light GA (IMCR or not) actually flies.
It was introduced by some very far-sighted and pro-GA people in the UK CAA in the 1960s. Such people were not much in evidence since, and they have been almost completely missing in most of Europe
It works because the Class A ban prevents the holders from entering “real CAS”, and because the UK does not really fund ATC services to GA, so keeping most of the IMCR traffic to Class G works just right 
It’s a good political sleight of hand which stops the elitists saying their gold-plated IR has been devalued.
Germany and France for example could have easily had the IMCR, perhaps with a FL120 ceiling to compensate for the fact that they don’t have the large areas of Class A with which to keep light GA out. But these countries never had the foresight to even think about it. I recall a long discussion in a French forum on the then CBM IR proposal and most of the pilots there just slaughtered it! GA pilots are the most aggressive “anti-everything” policemen in GA; much worse than anybody in the national CAAs, generally.
It is often said that the UK has exceptionally bad weather but that’s simply not the case – well not when you look when light GA (IMCR or not) actually flies.
Agreed. But it DOES have exceptionally badly organized airspace.
The EIR in my opinion will be used by people to primarily
- divide the full IR training in two segments, get the EIR first and then, when they have the money and time, the full IR.
- others will get the EIR in order to do away with the VFR restrictions in CAS and to be able to fly their Enroute Segment under ATC control and within the airway system. I would guess that most of these EIR flights will be conducted in VMC at the cruising levels. It will allow much better use of the airspace system.
I remember doing my initial IR and it would certainly have helped me then to get the EIR and then fly with it for a couple of months before proceeding to the full IR. Certainly it would have made some of my trips easier.
I am not quite sure about the way Pilot and Flugzeug interprets some aspects of it, equally I am not quite sure if the authors of the EASA Text have really thought the restrictions through. Yes, Tom, you are right, interpretion is allowed here, GAFORs can be taken into account (certainly where GAFORs indicate areas like in Germany or France, if the area the VFR airport lies in is OSKAR that would qualify as an adequate forecast I reckon), yet the 2 alternate option is much easier to plan in the end.
Only practice will show what the interpretation by the individual CAA’s will be. I’d be surprised if someone would be accused of wrong flight planning by any but the most stupid bureaucrats if he plans with a closed VFR destination and 2 VMC alternates featuring TAF’s or can “prove” a valid VMC forecast in other forms.
GA pilots are the most aggressive “anti-everything” policemen in GA; much worse than anybody in the national CAAs, generally.
THAT unfortunately is a very true statement. I am more than surprised about how pilots have reacted to the new EASA IRs as well as to some other issues.
