Having received my licence in July 2013, just before quitting my job and heading off travelling for 6 months, I had only done one post-PPL flight down to Lee and back. As I intend to progress towards my commercial rating, I need to build up my hours to 200 before I can get that rating. The commercial course itself is 25 hours so that leaves me with 125 hours or so to build before starting the training.
I want the hour building to be really worthwhile, as it's probably the only time in my life (assuming no imminent lottery win) that I will get to spend this amount of time flying anywhere I want, and it all be working towards my end goal. I have decided to spend a month in California, to try and make the most of their better weather and significantly cheaper rental prices (£55/hour as opposed to £110/hour). Before going though I want to get the IMC rating. This is a basic instrument rating, which gives the holder experience of flying with sole reference to the instruments, which may become necessary during inadvertent (or planned) entry into cloud. It also gives experience of tracking with other navigational aids: VORs, NDBs and ILS. This allows for let-down procedures when landing at airports underneath the cloudbase. Whilst the rating cannot be used outside the UK, it is a good "get out of jail" card, should inadvertent entry to cloud occur, and is also good practice and experience for my eventual Instrument Rating - in fact the current idea is that the instruction I've received may even count partially towards my IR as my instructors have all been full IR Instructors....we'll see what EASA decide next as to whether this sticks.
I want the hour building to be really worthwhile, as it's probably the only time in my life (assuming no imminent lottery win) that I will get to spend this amount of time flying anywhere I want, and it all be working towards my end goal. I have decided to spend a month in California, to try and make the most of their better weather and significantly cheaper rental prices (£55/hour as opposed to £110/hour). Before going though I want to get the IMC rating. This is a basic instrument rating, which gives the holder experience of flying with sole reference to the instruments, which may become necessary during inadvertent (or planned) entry into cloud. It also gives experience of tracking with other navigational aids: VORs, NDBs and ILS. This allows for let-down procedures when landing at airports underneath the cloudbase. Whilst the rating cannot be used outside the UK, it is a good "get out of jail" card, should inadvertent entry to cloud occur, and is also good practice and experience for my eventual Instrument Rating - in fact the current idea is that the instruction I've received may even count partially towards my IR as my instructors have all been full IR Instructors....we'll see what EASA decide next as to whether this sticks.
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