The CB-IR theory does not give the same credit towards the CPL exams as the old IR theory
What is the exact difference?
Apart from HP&L, none of the 13 CPL exams is identical to any of the 14 ATPL exams, AFAIK.
The old JAA IR HP&L exam could be used towards the 14 ATPL exams.
So the old JAA IR HP&L exam could be used towards the 13 CPL exams too.
But that one 24-question full-of-crap exam is almost worthless anyway.
A modular student could save 10 hours on the old course, which is definitely worth it!
I was wrong, a CPL holder is credited with 10 hours against IR anyway – so no time saving.
What is the exact difference?
Good question … I was told there was credit for IFR comms and some other subjects, but now I can’t find a reference.
IFR comms… yeah another little one 
When I did the JAA IR 7 exams, I had certainly not heard of that one. Only the HP&L could be used as a credit from the CPL, reducing the IR (the “PPL/IR” IR!) to 6 exams.
The feedback in this thread has been interesting. I am trying to read between the lines, and taking into account that some people not only find tedious tech questions easy but quite a lot of people actually enjoy doing this stuff, it does seem to me that if you just want the CPL exam passes, there is probably quite a significant difference between the “CPL-13” and the “ATPL-14”.
I have seen the ATPL exams. When I first looked at the JAA IR, c. 2001, there was temporarily no 7-exam IR. You had to do all 14. Obviously I gave up, and started on the N-reg route, which took another 5 years to finish. But I saw the material, and have never before or since seen so much absolutely irrelevant crap.
I did the JAA IR 7 exams in 2008, and got zero, zilch, nada, nothing as credit towards the ATPL 14 which I have just finished.
Peter, you mean irrelevant crap like the no. of fire extinguishers on a 600 seat aeroplane, or the hydroplaning speed for a particular tyre pressure ;-)
A CB-IR is a full IR.
Nor does the old IR route. Unless you have an ATPL exam pass, you would need to do a separate HPA course.
It looks like there is a VFR HPA and IFR HPA. HPA course covered VFR part, because it wasn’t part of PPL, or CPL for that matter. However IR already contained IFR theory for HPA. And they removed it when making CB-IR. At least that is my understanding.
Would you have a reference, Martin?
Try explanatory note to decision 2014/022/R. I haven’t looked into it properly yet.
Just an update:
I have just phoned up CATS and check with them the Gatwick options.
They still do the CPL ground school at Gatwick. I had previously heard only the ATPL could be done there, and the CPL had to be done at Luton.
The classroom time is three 4-day sessions.
Each session is done at the end of the month, every two months. The “in between months” are done at Luton, so if you want to travel you can do them every 1 month. For Gatwick-only students, it would be e.g.
end of Jan
end of Mar
end of May
For people willing to do both Luton and Gatwick, it would be
end of Jan (Gatwick)
end of Feb (Luton)
end of Mar (Gatwick)
There is an easy direct train between Gatwick and Luton – about £50 return per day.
The study is web based (they do an Ipad app also) and there is a progress test every 15hrs of study, with a pass mark of 75%.
Total cost is about £1300.
My personal comment, not knowing CATS at all, but based on my GTS time in 2011, is that the homework marking system is one area where you could get screwed. If you have help (and the ATPL students I met at the hotel in Bournemouth were doing their homework en-masse so they presumably all got 100% 
) then it is easy. I was in there alone and had no help, and did poorly (the GTS ex-1950s ex-RAF material being stuffed with extras from the ATPL didn’t help) but somehow it got overlooked and wasn’t discovered until after I was signed off for the CAA exams!
Thanks Peter, the above is a useful post and is more or less what I thought having done a bit of research myself in doing the CPL groundschool with CATS Gatwick. If anyone has any recent experience of this, I would be most interested to hear about it.
For clarification, I would be working at this entirely alone.
What is holding me back from getting started at the moment is the fact that I work full time and I am unsure just how realistic it would be to fit in the necessary study time around my job and other commitments. Again, if any one has any experience of how they managed, I would love to hear about it.
The only other point which I am slightly dissatisfied about is that I am very much a “paper” person. I don’t own an iPad (although I do of course have a computer) and I feel that paying an extra £600 for the reading material is rather steep!
I suggest you call them, but I would think they do the paper study material as well.
Also for possible future FI ratings, I am looking for distance learning options with minimal groundschool classroom days for CPL. Preferably in Belgium, France, Holland.
Suggesties?
