bookworm wrote:
Is it worth differentiating? (…) I’ve never flown a difficult STAR!
Maybe not “difficult”, but safety-critical (proximity of cumulus granitus) certainly. See for example the OBLAK/OKANA/VAGEN 1B STARs of LYNI. Maybe I’ve already told the story to each of you several times, but it was my first arrival/approach in actual IMC after getting my IR. With a Jepp plate that didn’t contain needed information, when already below MSA. And the approach controller doesn’t have radar (at least didn’t a year ago), it is all procedural separation.
In situation, not understanding what I was supposed to do, I followed the GPS overlay. I’m not sure what I would have done in a pre-GPS world. Would I have flown out for 1 minute? For 13.1 nmi? A careful examination of the surroundings suggests even 13.1 nmi would have been “safe” because terrain is below 5000ft. But I didn’t know that when I started this procedure.
Are EIR holders trained on this kind of teardrop procedure?
The Jeppesen plate was corrected speedily when I reported it. It now has the information. The AIP and LIDO plates had the right information already.
You learn a lot, it’s not that expensive and not as complicated as the full IR rating … I see no reason to NOT do it
Has anyone actually got an EIR? If so, where was the training coducted?
Is anyone enrolled upon an EIR Course in the UK?
It seems industry is ready, they have paid money for approvals, but so far there are no takers in sight!
I have heard, 3rd hand, that 2 people in Norway did the EIR. No more information however.
UK… nobody I have heard of.
One might think it would be popular, because the EIR + IMCR combination would give you a practically full IR in UK airspace (so long as you were outside Class A by the time you cancel IFR, which, hey, you can’t do in Class A anyway 
) but I guess there are other factors like the EIR theory being the same as the CB IR theory so… there is no point in the EIR.
Maybe there is a combination of training where the EIR is an advantage?
I’d be quite interested to hear about the usability of the EIR if there are any EIR holders here.
Has anyone actually got an EIR? If so, where was the training coducted?
Is anyone enrolled upon an EIR Course in the UK?
It seems industry is ready, they have paid money for approvals, but so far there are no takers in sight!
I have read a lot of GA “how to” books and haven’t found any of them useful.
I think it’s partly because the pilots who do burger runs (the majority) don’t need much knowledge and those that do longer trips use as many different “workflows” as there are pilots, especially when you get to IFR. Plus the best way to do something changes from one year to the next and most of the books in the GA shops are really old.
Websites which describe actual trips in detail (rather than a blog with just a load of pics) are probably the most useful. Unashamedly there is mine 
and I have ~100GB of traffic per month (gradually grown since 2004) to support that assertion and that without using any google analytics, cookies, or whatever.
I think the clues to the best way to use the EIR will be obtained from VFR pilots that do long trips, and what tricks they use. Without an IR, not all of their tricks will be legal, and the EIR will help with that a great deal – as well as facilitating enroute CAS transits which have always been the biggest problem with long distance VFR across Europe.
I would be very wary of such “books”. Since nobody can have much real-life experience with using the EIR, this is very likely to be a work of theory, i.e. it will not answer any of the interesting questions.
Better keep reading here, or at PPL/IR.
It could be tricky…
How about: take a look at the radar vectoring minima chart, and ensure that the cloudbase is above, then request radar vectors to the minimum from ATC?
That’s been more or less standard practice for me being based on a VFR only airfield. Ok I have the additional option to shoot an ILS at a nearby airport to get below clouds when they were below the rather high MRVA, which I’ve used once or twice.
Currently, Europe doesn’t seem to have any detection / enforcement of pilots flying “VFR” in non-VFR conditions – other than stuff like the “approach ban” operated by the UK and some other countries where ATC is required to report someone who descends through 1000ft while the RVR is below minima.
But that may change. I have just read a long thread on a US site (Beechtalk – requires a subscription) giving details of two US pilots who got busted for cancelling IFR too early i.e. changing to “VFR” while the untowered airport’s automatic wx reporting system was reporting sub-VFR conditions for the airspace class in question (Class E – 1000ft and 3sm or something like that; I can never remember any of this stuff). Even in the USA this is very rare but Europe could do it if somebody gets off the wrong side of the bed.
So I think EIR pilots will need to develop clear strategies on how to do this.
It has been argued that the EIR is no different to a plain PPL in that the latter needs a careful appraisal of the destination wx, to maintain VMC all the way to the runway. But the EIR holder is exposing himself to certificate action by the additional act of cancelling IFR and picking a point to do it which is provably below VFR conditions. A purely-VFR pilot can (illegally) descend through cloud, and it is standard practice at many places, but the presumption of being in VMC all the way down is not questioned because attention is not drawn to any change of flight rules. Also, the plain PPL is more likely to be doing anything dodgy OCAS while the EIR holder may be trapped into cancelling IFR while still in CAS… let’s face it, he has to do it before commending the IAP, to remain legal. The official position of cancelling IFR at the point on the flight plan where the “VFR” keyword appears is not helpful because nobody is going to actually follow that unless the wx is clear all the way down.
It could be tricky…
