RobertL18C wrote:
being short GBP since 2016 has been a no brainier wealth enhancer.
Not really; unless you timed it for the period of the actual vote and could see into the future. Since then, the movement GBP vs EUR or USD has been small enough that even boring passive index fund investing will have made more (and buying oversold shares in companies when people panicked even more so). Far from a no-brainer, forex has been a mug’s game apart from a very small lucky percentage of people or people with a time machine.
RobertL18C wrote:
being short GBP since 2016 has been a no brainier wealth enhancer
If you are a remainer paid in dollar back then, you would end up sad & rich 
Alpha_Floor wrote:
Let’s assume I f****** up and I should have acted as to cover more possible scenarios, fine. Let me be punished for my mistake. My punishment will be to redo my EASA ATPL theory exams, skills tests etc.
I do sympathize with your predicament. In your situation I would be looking at if I could do parallel UK and EASA licencing, is that possible?
Peter wrote:
Given that the FTOs are nowadays full of foreign students, I wonder what their plan was?
That was more my point about it, these schools should have been on the ball as its their business, as opposed to a student new to the world of aviation who would have had zero experience of the last 20 years of National/JAR/EASA rules/goalpost changing…
Peter wrote:
And that extends to any flying school that was teaching students over the last 4 years too.Given that the FTOs are nowadays full of foreign students, I wonder what their plan was? There must be thousands in this situation now, with UK CPL/IRs which EASA won’t recognise, it appears. Is that really the case? Is it really the case that thousands paid ~100k and came out with nothing?
Somebody must know the real detailed story behind this.
The more proactive schools got also EASA ATO papers.
@alioth forex is not the only strategy, but bulk of portfolio is EUR, USD hedged – I remain comfortable living in a EUR portfolio. GBP is not supported by either: accumulating foreign reserves through a BofP surplus, a strong national savings rate, economic growth or sound fiscal policies. The tectonic movement of assets under management to Europe will continue, and with it insurance reserves. Have seen the movie before.
Main worry is that returns have been better than I expected, especially in tech equities.
dublinpilot wrote:
Is the problem with resitting them time, money or regulations?
For me it is primarily time and money. The closest EASA state to me would charge over €1500 in exam fees alone, not inlcuding any travel and accommodation costs. The exam material is also not really regularly practiced stuff ‘in real life’, so with it being quite a number of years since I did them, a fair amount of time would have to be put in to stand a chance of passing them again I reckon. For someone without a ‘full’ ATPL they need to go through an ATO and pay fees for that as well. Being able to get the required time off work just to sit these exams would be difficult for me, let alone any required time to prepare.
skydriller wrote:
but I cant help but ask “Did you not know about Brexit?”
Unfortunately the conditions of my employment and the fact that you can not have an EASA licence from two different states at once precluded me from doing anything about it, regardless of how much I knew about Brexit or not.
I still think there are conversion routes for working airline pilots.
This is not my area obviously but for many years JAA/EASA operated a route where if you had something like 2000hrs on a Part 25 aircraft, you just did a simcheck with a TRE. You absolutely did not sit the 14 stupid exams. This is how pilots moved between airlines, before EASA unified the license v. aircraft reg regime, not that many years ago. I wrote about it here (search for “part 25”) and that was written in 2011/2012.
Different airlines had slightly different procedures for this stuff and didn’t discuss it openly. The routes depended on how much they wanted the new pilot.
Some followed some funny routes. I used to know a guy who got into the JAA CPL/IR pipeline without ever sitting the 14 exams. He got an FAA CPL/IR, then he got a job at an AOC operation which flew a plane registered in a certain former Soviet Bloc country, he got the FAA CPL/IR converted to that country’s ICAO CPL/IR, and when that country joined JAA that became a JAA CPL/IR. Later he turned up at the UK CAA where they gave him a UK CAA CPL/IR, which later became an EASA CPL/IR, convertible to an ATPL by the usual route of accumulating 500hrs in a MP cockpit
Peter, if you can point me to a regulation backing up that 2000+ hours in Part 25 statement then it would be genuinely helpful, as it is at odds with what I have been told by an EASA NAA. I can not find any mention of it in regulations nor by Google. Indeed trying to google the subject throws up numerous results of people with primarily FAA licences and thousands of hours having to do the exams.
The only slight hint of something I can find dates back to JAR days and is as follows:
G1.5 Note 2
Different terms apply to ATPL(A) holders with a
minimum of 3,000 hours flying experience as pilot of
public transport aircraft over 30,000kgs MTWA on
scheduled international or similar routes, including a
minimum of 1,500 hours as Pilot-in-Command
(Captain). Applicants who believe they qualify should
apply to PLD for a formal written assessment using
form SRG\1103 and enclosing the appropriate fee,
actual logbooks and non-UK licence (with validating
medical certificate if separate).
Applicants who qualify under these terms will be eligible
to complete reduced requirements for the issue of a
JAR-FCL ATPL(A). With regards to the theoretical
knowledge examinations requirement, a credit will be
given towards the JAR-FCL ATPL(A) examinations,
with the exception of Air Law and Human Performance
and Limitations examinations which will need to be
passed. An applicant who completes the reduced
requirements will be issued with a JAR-FCL ATPL(A)
however, as this licence does not fully comply with the
requirements of JAR-FCL, the holder is not entitled to
automatic recognition accorded to JAR-FCL. The
licence will therefore be issued with the following
statement:
Valid for United Kingdom registered aircraft. As this
licence does not fully comply with JAR-FCL the holder
must have permission from any other JAA Member
State prior to exercising the licence privileges in aircraft
registered in that State.
This endorsement may be removed by obtaining a pass
in all JAR-FCL ATPL(A) theoretical knowledge
examinations. (The 12 remaining JAR-FCL ATPL(A)
examinations will be classed as a new set and attempt
and will be subject to the pass standards as detailed in
Section J1.5).
Which doesn’t appear to have been copied over to EASA times, and is obvious from the above that it was some sort of UK CAA concession which gave you a G-reg limited licence (A UK PART-FCL obviously already covers this) which you could only remove the limitation from by completing all exams.
@Pirho, it really sounds like you’re between a rock and a hard place. I hope there’s some solution for your situation in the future.
@Alpha_Floor, I have no idea if this could work, but: does your ATO have a ‘correspondence’ ATO somewhere in EASA-land, e.g. Spain? I know some ATOs have. What I’m getting at here is a sort of ‘internal’ transfer from your UK ATO to an EASA one.
Failing that, perhaps you should talk to an EASA ATO, for example Aerodynamics in Malaga and see if there’s a path forward.
Wishing both of you luck.
I have had a dig through my emails and while I find stuff about this back 10 years, I can’t find an original source. It may have been some airline running such a scheme. I will dig around some more.
However one bizjet pilot has just told me that if you have an ICAO ATPL you “just” need to sit the 14 exams plus a simcheck to get an EASA ATPL. No need for doing the residential course. But if you have just an ICAO CPL/IR then you need to do the residential course. I would imagine there would be some reference to this in the EASA regs. This guy (FAA ATP) has spent years working out how to avoid the 14 exams… now he flies for an IOM Operator and that avoids the requirement for EASA papers completely.
