Aviathor wrote:
Pardon my French but why do the Swedes use Sigurd-Erik instead of Sierra-Echo? I used to hear just as much Swedish on the radio in Sweden as I hear French in France.IFR traffic is virtually 100% English while VFR traffic — in particular at VFR-only airfields — is mostly Swedish. But anyhow, I don’t mind French pilots at domestic airports speaking French. What I don’t understand is why there is a law that they must speak French.
Peter wrote:
EASA would not have allowed it, back in the bad old days when as an EU agency it was all-powerful and utterly arrogant. You should have been to some conferences back then
I’ll take your word on it but I have trouble imagining the usefulness of an IR limited to Annex 2 aircraft. Why bother creating it and why bother stopping someone from doing so? Or was that pre-Part-FCL (you wrote a few years ago which I took as post)? And this is quite surprising as I would expect France to have a big influence on EASA’s policy. Where does the nonsense come from? I know EASA inherited it from JAA but who pushes for sticking with it?
Martin wrote:
Why? AFAIK nothing is stopping France from having an ICAO compliant national IR
The French National IR comes to an end in 2017 or 2018. I do not remember exactly when. I believe that you have not been able to train for the French IR for a while already, but that needs to be verified.
The path to obtaining the EASA IR (CB route) based on the French IR is to get the ELP.
It makes absolutely no sense to me to maintain the IR as is today with the ELP requirement even to fly within the issuing country, and introducing a new IR (BIR) which requires no ELP. Why such double standards? We share the same airspace!
Good question.
Maybe a greater range of schools/clubs where it can be taught? That is a major factor for the much greater % penetration of the IR in the USA. Same school for the PPL, IR, CPL, even (in the past) ATP.
I also think that, in the “southern” Europe where English is not readily spoken, an IR taught in the national language (and doable wholly locally, not involving exam sitting at some elite national school) should get a 10x bigger take-up if it can be made legal for all of Europe with just an ELP4 test.
National qualifications were an absolute no-no in EASA. I recall one conference where Eric Sivel stood up and said Europe is about standardisation therefore the IMC Rating must end unless every other European country wants it too. He may as well have held up a jar of vaseline to the Brit delegates 
That was the EU… pre-Greek-crisis, pre-Euro-crisis, pre-whatever-else brought some changes. Today’s EASA seems very different but has inherited a lot of crap.
Aviathor wrote:
It makes absolutely no sense to me to maintain the IR as is today with the ELP requirement even to fly within the issuing country, and introducing a new IR (BIR) which requires no ELP. Why such double standards? We share the same airspace!
Indeed. Requiring ELP only for international flying would make more sense (and it should still be ICAO compliant). BIR as it’s proposed should allow international flights without ELP which AFAIK isn’t ICAO compliant. They consider ELP to be a potential barrier and this rating isn’t ICAO compliant anyway. Also, the NPA mentions a possible amendment to language proficiency requirements as part of another rulemaking task (focused on improving Part-FCL for GA pilots). Which could mean exactly that – ELP only for international flying. The double standard you speak of then could simply be a result of writing this to a future standard.
Peter wrote:
Maybe a greater range of schools/clubs where it can be taught? That is a major factor for the much greater % penetration of the IR in the USA. Same school for the PPL, IR, CPL, even (in the past) ATP.
They clearly wrote that only ATOs will be able to train for BIR. They are also the only kind of school EASA currently has so yes, unless they manage to bring out RTO/ DTO/ etc., every “PPL school” will be able to train for IR. As long as they can get an appropriate instructor.
AFAIK there is no need to train for IR in English, you just need ELP and appropriate radio privileges in English.
Martin wrote:
AFAIK there is no need to train for IR in English, you just need ELP and appropriate radio privileges in English.
Here in Germany we have the BZF 2 for Radio in German, BZF 1 for radio in english and AZF for radio under IFR – just wondering what would be the situation here, whether a pilot taking the BIR needs an AZF or could do it using a BZF 1 – after all, he would have the appropriate privileges, once he has the ELP……
Martin wrote:
They clearly wrote that only ATOs will be able to train for BIR. They are also the only kind of school EASA currently has so yes, unless they manage to bring out RTO/ DTO/ etc., every “PPL school” will be able to train for IR. As long as they can get an appropriate instructor.
I doubt the CAA will make it as simple as that. It will need full authority oversight. Training Manuals, Safety manuals, quality manuals, SMS, quarterly safety management meetings, quarterly safety newsletter. The costs to the CAA in fees will be multiple thousands a year and you will in all probability have to pay an ex CAA ops inspector to write them for you.
If this happens then the take up will be limited.
I doubt the CAA will make it as simple as that. It will need full authority oversight. Training Manuals, Safety manuals, quality manuals, SMS, quarterly safety management meetings, quarterly safety newsletter. The costs to the CAA in fees will be multiple thousands a year and you will in all probability have to pay an ex CAA ops inspector to write them for you.
Exactly – what we have today, which is why most ATOs can’t/won’t teach the CB IR. It’s not worth their while.
I also found that the majority of ATOs, not just UK but Europe, won’t touch a customer aircraft. That prevents the IR being taught to the very people most likely to use it long-term. Very few renters can use an IR, partly because they have to pay so much to remain current. The annual revalidation costs them a few hundred, too.
And if you will do the smart thing and buy an aircraft (alone or in a syndicate) the smart thing is to do the IR in it.
EASA needs to sort out the organisational approval side, to get any take-up.
The problem is that Europe is totally bogged down in organisational approvals. There is a distrust of individuals which leads to this.
Peter wrote:
I also found that the majority of ATOs, not just UK but Europe, won’t touch a customer aircraft.
That’s not my experience. Of the two ATOs I discussed doing my CB-IR with, one of them actually proactively suggested doing it on my aircraft and already had a solution in place for the fact it didn’t have an ADF. The other was fine with it subject to checking everything was working correctly before commencing training.
Another problem is that you can’t get stand alone CBIR approval. It has to on the back of IR approval.
The registered facility I work at has two instructors on the books that have taught IR in the past. They also have an IRR and IRE on staff and they are more than happy to teach the outside ATO aspect of the CBIR and even have a no longer approved frasca 142 to keep the costs competitive which is all great but then you have a 120 mike commute to the nearest ATO that offers CBIR training.
