CB-IR / CB IR / CBIR (merged)

UK pilot doing CBIR in Spain – my experience

£220 later and I have my new licence issued by the CAA

I’ve covered my experience with the TK already here but a few bullets on the flying:

• Course was at Fly in Spain in Jerez which was well-priced
• Did the ME-IR course. I had an expired MEP rating which I renewed in the UK and frankly didn’t want to do the initial IR skills test twice (on SEP then maybe MEP later) so thought better to go the MEP route straight away even though it would cost a bit more in the short term
• Spent 5 days in Jerez over the August Bank Holiday weekend, 4 days at the school
• Total flying time of 10 hours (4x 2.5 hours over 2 days) and then 4 hours of Sim – all on a PA34 Seneca 2 (honestly I did it in 10 flying hours before Peter calls me superhuman again. I have a log book to prove it ). Skills test was morning of the fourth day and was relatively straightforward, including an engine failure at 500ft on the ILS
• Claimed the other 35 hours on the course against IFR PIC time (I have an IR(R) already with around 300 hours’ P1 time. I hardly have any MEP time)
• Licence issued by the UK CAA doesn’t have the “CB” endorsement, FWIW. Paperwork was a bit of a hassle given foreign ATO and examiner, but not a problem. I had to pay an extra £81 to get my IR(R) renewed for another 2 years as the Spanish examiner had no clue on the regs for the IR(R). Hence why the CAA charged me an extortionate £220
• Total cost was just over £6k, including all training, skills test (E300 in Spain, versus around £800 in UK!), hotel (and I stayed somewhere nice), car hire, food, flights from London. And that’s on a twin. Wycombe offers the base course at double that, for example.

Lessons learned:

• Sim time was extremely valuable. The ability to wind back and try the same thing again was very helpful and really accelerated my learning hugely. Anyone who tells you to do it all in the plane is trying to milk you for cash, in my opinion
• No NDB tracking saves a lot of hassle (the non-precision approach at Jerez is VOR). If you need to do it for practical purposes, I’d learn it with an instructor afterwards. I’m already relatively proficient from my IR(R) and EGTK’s procedures have NDB tracking. However, failing the skills test because you’re a degree or two out on the NDB track is a very expensive mistake and you can get 7 hours’ training post test in a Cessna 172 for the same price as failing the test
• Book some margin for error in, if you’re travelling to Spain. I got thunderstorms for a day so couldn’t fly – even IFR. And this was August.
• Doing it in Spain was significantly nicer than somewhere like Bournemouth – I sat by the pool after 5pm each day eating some delicious jamón. And much cheaper.
• Learning approach charts before you go saves a lot of time and gives your instructor confidence you have at least a clue that you know what you’re doing. I had the Jeppesen plates which are simply the best – whilst expensive, they’re worth it
• V IMPORTANT: EASA regs for the IR state that time logged is flying time, not normal blocks time. That means that longer sorties are significantly cheaper because you’re not paying for lots of 0.2 hour blocks at either end for taxiing out and back. I’ve heard that some schools just ignore this, but didn’t want to have to return to Spain to finish 0.5 hours, so I didn’t risk it (the 10 hours at an ATO is an absolute minimum)

Feel free to PM me with any questions, or can answer below.

V IMPORTANT: EASA regs for the IR state that time logged is flying time, not normal blocks time.

What is your refference for this? Part FCL states:

FCL.050 Recording of flight time
The pilot shall keep a reliable record of the details of all flights flown in a form and manner established
by the competent authority.

If you have a UK issued licence that is Article 228 of the UK ANO
FCL.010 also states:

“Flight time”:
for aeroplanes, touring motor gliders and powered-lift, it means the total time from the moment an
aircraft first moves for the purpose of taking off until the moment it finally comes to rest at the end
of the flight;

i.e. Blocks Time! and;

“Flight time under Instrument Flight Rules” (IFR) means all flight time during which the aircraft is
being operated under the Instrument Flight Rules.

So if the whole flight is IFRules it is still Blocks time!

It’s because course requirement is ‘instrument time under instruction’ which I think is defined as ‘time by which a pilot is controlling an aircraft in flight by sole reference to instruments’ – the CAA issued an IN specifically about this a few years ago, can’t find it just now

Tumbleweed wrote:

So if the whole flight is IFRules it is still Blocks time!

How do you operate IFR on the ground?

FCL Appendix 6 – “10 hours of Instrument flight time” (note this does NOT say “under IFR”) is required.

“Instrument Flight Time” is defined as “the time during which a pilot is controlling an aircraft IN FLIGHT solely by reference to instruments”

I can’t see how you can include taxiing time under that definition. “In flight” must mean “in the air” and in any case you can’t control the aircraft solely by instruments on the ground.

Anyway, maybe you are correct. But if the CAA says you’re half an hour out and as a result your test is invalid and you have to go back to Spain to complete the course, you’d feel like a bit of an idiot.

There is a difference between instrument flight time which is the time the airplane is effectively controlled by sole reference to instruments, and IFR time. The 50 hours of IFR time as PIC for conversion from a 3rd country IR to EASA IR is not instrument flight time, for example.

Frankly, the addition of a new definition is simply unhelpful and totally unnecessary given the minuscule difference it makes overall – it’s not even as though anyone can agree it! Typical EASA.

When I was doing the FAA to JAA IR conversion, one logged the whole lot i.e. the usual UK thing of brakes-off to brakes-on.

Once the checkride is passed, nobody cares, because the examiner will have checked the logbooks to make sure you have done the required hours.

The “50hrs IFR time” thing surprised a lot of people because you could log IFR time on a plain PPL in VMC, in the UK anyway.

@Peter – that’s not correct. There are stories of the CAA returning applications for insufficient flight time, post test, all over various forums.

Noe wrote:

How do you operate IFR on the ground?

If you look at the pilot’s log book samples in the AMC/GM to part-FCL it is very clear that the full block time can be logged as IFR time. (Of course “IFR” time is different from “instrument time under instruction”.

You could just as well ask why you can log IFR time in VMC, why you can log IFR time while on autopilot etc. Or even how why can log “flight time” on the ground.