Peter wrote:
The problem is that you can’t do Part 61 in the US as a visitor with the usual Visa and TSA stuff. That has to be done Part 141You have a source for that? It is true that schools which can handle the Visa/TSA/I-20-stuff are mostly Part-141, but you certainly can do Part-61-training in a 141-school.
This is now off topic 
which I wanted to keep narrow in this thread but basically only a 141 school can generate the I-20 form – see this slightly outdated by generally still good writeup. In the goode olde days lots of people went to the US on a holiday and popped into a 61 school and did it “off the record”. I know a guy who did the whole lot up to an ATP like that, and hilariously he did it well after all the current regs were in place.
Peter wrote:
Somebody might argue that the 50hrs IFR PIC probably needs to be airborne time, but I think that’s daft because the taxi was “with the intention of flying [IFR]”.
Flight time logging for EASA license holders is regulated in FCL.050. The AMC makes pretty clear that the IFR time you log is block time and not airborne time.
First, “flight time” is defined as “…from the moment an aircraft first moves to taking off until the moment it finally comes to rest at the end of the flight;” (item g1 of the AMC). Then, “…enter flight time undertaken at night or under instrument flight rules if applicable;” (item i7 of the AMC).
Also, the example log book page in the AMC has identical times for “flight time”, “PIC” and “IFR” for a single-pilot IFR flight.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Flight time logging for EASA license holders is regulated in FCL.050. The AMC makes pretty clear that the IFR time you log is block time and not airborne time.
That’s clear if one is flying an I FPL. What about Y or Z, where only part of the flight is under IFR?
Logic might dictate that when you depart under IFR, the taxy time (from off-blocks) counts, and when you arrive under IFR, the taxy time (to on-blocks) counts. Otherwise, not.
Personally, I don’t think taxying is done under any flight rules.
The answer on logging ground IFR time is rather obvious to me when one asks for taxi in low visibility: I = ok while V, Y, Z will not work
One can extrapolate that conclusion to IFR in good visibility….
chflyer wrote:
That’s clear if one is flying an I FPL. What about Y or Z, where only part of the flight is under IFR?
FCL.050 makes no mention of flight plans. Personally, if I take off under IFR, I count the taxi to the runway as IFR, otherwise not. Same for landings.
The difference is that, on the mainland, you generally cannot fly IFR other than on a Eurocontrol-validated and filed flight plan. I know there are exceptions, for low level flights etc in some countries e.g. apparently Sweden.
Whereas here in the UK you could literally just fly up and down the coast, Class G, at IFR levels (whole numbers of 1000s of feet), non-radio, non-transponder, CAVOK, and log it as IFR. Now chuck in some anally retarded CAA official, in a year’s time, who decides he doesn’t like the logbook entries. Who is one to appeal to? There is nobody to appeal to. You are f***d, as they say. Your 50+hrs, which cost you some portion of 10k just in avgas, is worth nothing.
When I started down the FAA route, c. 2003, I went back to the old PPL school and got the “CFI” to sign off every line of all the training. And sure enough these entries were carefully examined later… in 2006, in Arizona, when doing the IR. You just never know. So often in aviation it has paid to cover one’s 6 o’clock.
Peter wrote:
The difference is that, on the mainland, you generally cannot fly IFR other than on a Eurocontrol-validated and filed flight plan.
Y and Z flight plans are Eurocontrol-validated, are they not?
As you are talking of hours under IFR instruction,
surely the instructor also keeps or makes a record of the hours flown under IFR so surely a simple attestation from the instructor would suffice as proof of number of hours flown under IFR instruction.
@Ibra isn’t IFR time IFR time and logged as such whether it is flown in VMC or IMC. The EASA regs make no distinction as far as I can see.
Also an IFR flight is an IFR flight from the moment you declare it to be. Eg You call tower for start up and include in the message “request start up for an IFR flight to LFxx”
Then you log block to block time.
One could debate Y and Z plans and say to be honourable you should just log from the moment you pick up your IFR clearance or make first A to G communication announcing you are IFR (OCAS) to the moment you cancel IFR, but I don’t recall an EASA regulation regarding this.But there are rules on how flight time should be recorded. As Airborne Again has pointed out previously.
My log book does however have a column to record IFR approaches and this might give some sort of indication as to whether the flight was IFR or not.
The UK is of course a special case in the IR(r) and the lack of need to file an FPL etc.
I would assume therefore, that if you are wanting time against an EASA IR, that in future would from now be a UK CAA IR unless you were attaching it to a EASA country’s PPL or CPL.
How much time will be allowed against total time on a UK CAA IR instruction as far as I know has not been published.
How much instruction time in IR(r) would be allowed under EASA would surely appear in EASA regulations as the IR(r) is or was an EASA qualification.
YMMV
