I am in the same boat, I did my IR exams as I felt the utility is worth it and I was not going to wait one boring year to start the IR training, now I am doing ATPL and halfway through, I think CPL would have been suboptimal and same hassle (probably 15% less in TK and 30% less in QDB)
PS: I think you can get 092 COM exam in ATPL grandfathered from your IR but you may need to check
@PetitCessnaVoyageur have you given Mermoz at Rungis a ring?They could probably give both advice and as they make their own textbooks, they might be able to show you the different learning material required.
Main differences are in Performance (Class A aircraft), as @aart points out high altitude wrt principles of flight, human factors, and I expect some extra material in systems, mass and balance, and weather.
At the margin worth doing, although check whether there is additional requirements for class room attendance.
Vladimir wrote:
Concerning the exams you already passed, they are not valid and you have to do everything again.
As long as the IR remains valid, the IR exams remain valid. If I recall correctly, some of the IR exams may be credited towards the ATPL, but I’m not sure which ones. I believe they are Human Factors, Communications and Meteorology, but again I’m not sure.
Airborne_Again wrote:
As long as the IR remains valid, the IR exams remain valid. If I recall correctly, some of the IR exams may be credited towards the ATPL, but I’m not sure which ones. I believe they are Human Factors, Communications and Meteorology, but again I’m not sure.
What do you mean by valid? Yes, they remain valid in the sense of you can continue flying IR even without passing the ATPL theory. But I think the question here is if you have to take them again and I think you have to take everything again because in every subject there are some additions. To be sure, a check with an ATO would be the second safest bet (the safest being to study the EASA documents on the topic but that’s an overkill).
Now, the 14 ATPL exams has been reduced to 13 also, AIUI.
Opinions differ on the workload but the difference is probably 30%.
If you want a jet job then you need the ATPL exams. Look up the “dead end CPL/IR route” 
@PetitCessnaVoyageur, opinions differ in terms of how much more you need to study. Officially, it is ~20% (10%-30%), but in reality the questions “leak” from ATPL QB to CPL QB and so you have to study more, just like with CB/IR – they have questions re: MRJT and trasport-category instruments. Yes, I know, rubbish, but it is what it is.
Which means, in reality, you’d have to study materials close to ATPL level of knowledge just to pass your CPL exams. Which in turn means about the same amount of study but (potentially) one exam less – it does not make sense, so many people just do ATPL, and not CPL.
Vladimir wrote:
What do you mean by valid? Yes, they remain valid in the sense of you can continue flying IR even without passing the ATPL theory. But I think the question here is if you have to take them again and I think you have to take everything again because in every subject there are some additions. To be sure, a check with an ATO would be the second safest bet (the safest being to study the EASA documents on the topic but that’s an overkill).
What I mean by valid is that they can be used towards issuing licenses or ratings. Just like ATPL theory exams remain valid for issuing an ATPL as long as you have a CPL.
This search digs out various “IR expiry” threads.
I must ask: why do all the ATPL (actually CPL/IR – there is no “ATPL” qualification you can get in Europe out of the training pipeline) exams?
If you want to be an airline pilot, then do them all; anything less is completely useless – like a TB20 with one tyre missing. If not, then don’t do any of them – you will just waste a chunk of your life for some academic self-flaggelation purpose, and a PPL/IR will be just as good. In Europe, a CPL if practically worthless, and a CPL done with CPL exams together with an IR done with IR exams is just as worthless because such a CPL/IR cannot ever be upgraded to an ATPL (via the only route which is 500hrs in a multi pilot RHS job). You can fly bizjets with such a CPL/IR but those jobs are rare.
Identical threads merged.
ATPL theory exams remain valid for issuing an ATPL as long as you have a CPL
Really? Euro IR exams need you to maintain a valid Euro IR, with a max gap of 7 years, unless flying on another valid ICAO IR in the meantime. Maybe a Euro CPL can serve the same purpose but it would amaze me because a CPL is far less work, both to get and the revalidate, than an IR.
In the past, ATPL holders (working airline pilots) who left Europe and then came back after many years had to re-do their ATPL exams, and an IR checkride… reportedly. @tumbleweed may know more.
I had a friend who did a CPL a few years ago. He was very outspoken as to how much rubbish was in the theory and what a waste of time it was. For context he was an ex-RAF pilot who had also flown in the third world, but for some reason had never converted to a civilian licence; he was being ‘forced’ by his employer to do a CPL to keep his instructing job. I still don’t understand how he got any jobs in the first place…
He said that an ATPL would have been easier because the CPL contained a certain amount of ATPL and IR theory that shouldn’t have been there, and the extra work was small in comparison. Also, the ATPL exams have more questions, so you’re more likely to pass as a wrong answer is a smaller percentage of the total.
I did read some of the books, but gave up half way. The only one I found interesting was meteorology.
My personal opinion was to stay well away from the whole thing
Basically, the question is what you want to do with your life.
