Currently there is no way to get a JAA/EASA CPL/IR from an FAA CPL/IR without doing all 14 exams.
However is that exactly true?
It may be possible with 9 exams.
Under the CBM IR proposal (currently in committee) the IR portion will not involve any written exams (just an oral with the examiner) but there is no way to do a CPL without at least the 9 CPL exams.
But if you do that, you will have a CPL/IR but you will not end up with a "proper" CPL/IR. The CPL/IR as a whole will never be upgradable to an ATPL because you never did the 14 ATPL exams.
In fact it could be worse: the IR might be usable with a PPL only - because you never did the 7 JAA/EASA IR exams.
Any views?
A lot of bizjet pilots are watching this... a lot of rumours about a treaty but I don't believe it since the USA would have nothing to gain from one, and EASA would have nothing to gain either because they want to screw the N-reg jet community anyway.
Any views?
If this wasn't a publicly visible forum I would write a longer answer.
But the short one has to do: There are no pilot jobs in Europe right now. Maybe some "jobs" where you have to pay to fly, but those don't count. So it makes no difference at all how someone gets his/her CPL (totally useless anyway) or ATPL. In the end, you don't have to pass the 7 or 9 or 14 exams of the aviation authority, but the one "exam" of the employer who looks for a pilot. And whose selection criteria may or may not include pilots trained outside JAA/EASA land. For us European pilots who spent a lot of money for our licenses the prospect of thousands and thousands of cheaply (in terms of mones, not quality!) trained pilots who compete with us for the few jobs is terrifying, because they can undercut our salaries, which are low enough already. Therefore my selfish opinion would be: Make it as difficult as you can, dear EASA ...
I think the context here is N-reg (and VP-reg etc etc) bizjet (and PC12 etc) paid pilots, who currently have only FAA papers, looking for ways to comply with EASA FCL which is due when the present derogations end in 2014.
I don't think many of today's "ATPL sausage machine" contents will suddenly move to Florida (etc), come here with FAA CPL/IRs, convert them (even if they could) and compete in the job market.
I say this because I don't think most of these young men are smart enough to work that out. If they were smart ("better informed" would be more accurate, but they aren't going to be told by their FTO how to spend less money) they would be doing it already.
If they knew the game, they could get some focused training, including possibly unlogged (and definitely not ATPL-creditable) flying with freelance IRIs, and they could turn up at an FTO and knock off their 55hr CPL/ME/IR in absolutely the minimum time, which currently only a small % achieve.
Also one can do a JAA CPL in the USA. And the PPL also. It is only the IR you can't do (one can do a part of it but I don't have the reference for this; IIRC there is one school in the USA doing it, under an EASA approval). Yet almost nobody is doing this.
If they were smart ("better informed" would be more accurate, but they aren't going to be told by their FTO how to spend less money) they would be doing it already.
Some do. But as of today, it is not really smart, because they have to do all the JAA/EASA exams (as you already wrote) and also some training in the aircraft. In the end, they won't save time or money that way. As an instructor, I was involved in re-training a handful of pilots who came with an FAA CPL/IR. Their level of knowledge and skill was extremely different. Two were really good, self-studied for the exam and passed all 14 test in one go and and needed the minimum amount of flying hours. The others were reallly bad in contrast. One had never heard of an NDB approch before, really. But I suspect that he had faked all his training records together with his FAA license. He ended doing the full JAA ATPL course in order to pass the exams and flight test. Luckily, in the last two or three years we have so many students of our own that our head of training refuses to accept any FAA rated pilots for conversion training.
I really don't understand the Q.
If you have an PPL/IR and you want to upgrade to a CPL/IR, you have to do 12 of the 14 subjects at CPL level. You get credit for Human Performance and Met.
If you have a CPL/IR obtained by doing the CPL TK and the IR TK, and you want to upgrade to an ATPL, you have to do 12 of the 14 subjects at ATPL level. You get credit VFR comms for the CPL, and you get credit for IFR comms for the IR.
If you don't like TK, the CB-IR seems like a useful route for someone with a foreign IR who wants a Part-FCL PPL/IR. Everyone else will have to wait for the BASA IPL.
But I suspect that he had faked all his training records together with his FAA license.
You could have checked that in 2 mins on faa.gov - something you can't do with a European license which can be checked by another CAA (subject to data protection etc etc) but can be trivially forged.
If you don't like TK, the CB-IR seems like a useful route for someone with a foreign IR who wants a Part-FCL PPL/IR. Everyone else will have to wait for the BASA IPL.
I think you have confirmed what I was getting at i.e. if somebody gets the CB IR (I see they have dropped the "M" - presumably it is not modular anymore) that IR is no good with a CPL unless they do 12 exams.
As an aside, if somebody did just the CPL then (9 exams) would they not have the CPL and the CB IR both written up in their CAA license package, and if so how could anybody tell this is not a "real" CPL/IR?
I think you have confirmed what I was getting at i.e. if somebody gets the CB IR (I see they have dropped the "M" - presumably it is not modular anymore) that IR is no good with a CPL unless they do 12 exams.
I still don't understand what you mean. To get the CPL, you have to do the 12 exams. If you need an IR to use with it, it doesn't matter what route was used to train for the IR.
To get a bare JAA CPL (if you have nothing at all except a JAA PPL) you do 9 exams.
I have known a number of people who did that, for e.g. instructing only, no IR.
Has it gone up to 12 now?
— Air Law,
— Aircraft General Knowledge — Airframe/Systems/Powerplant,
— Aircraft General Knowledge — Instrumentation,
— Mass and Balance,
— Performance,
— Flight Planning and Monitoring,
— Human Performance,
— Meteorology,
— General Navigation,
— Radio Navigation,
— Operational Procedures,
— Principles of Flight,
— Visual Flight Rules (VFR) Communications.
Actually that's 13, isn't it?
