CPL/ATPL GS? AFT/Bristol/Cranfield?

[enevill]

Hi,

Sorry if this has been done to death.

I am looking at doing a CPL and following that up with a FI rating and later and IR rating.

I am debating whether to do the ATPL or CPL ground school. I have been told that if I do the ATPL ground school then I do not need to do the IR ground school provided I do the IR within 3 years. Is this correct?

How much more difficult is the ATPL ground school? As far as I understand the CPL ground school involves 9 exams, the ATPL 14. Are the 9 for the CPL a subset of the 14 for the ATPL? Or are they completely different exams? If so, how much easier are they?

I would like to get my CPL by Apr next year. I can do 15-20 hrs a week for the next 5 months and 40 hours a week from then. Is this realistic for the ground school + the flight training (I have all the pre-qualifications already, 200hrs, 300nm trip, 5hrs night). Is it still realistic if I do the ATPL ground school?

Finally, the $20M question. Which ground school? I have spoken to AFT and Bristol. Bristol gets a lot of recs on PPrune. AFT is not mentioned much but what is mentioned is good. Any other opinions?

I get the impression that Bristol is very much geared towards airlines (easyjet?).

I like the fact that they also do flight training at AFT and are happy to train on my own 172.

Are there any others I should be looking at? Cranfield? I get the impression that Cranfield is very busy and can be somewhat impersonal?

Any comments welcome, thanks for your help,

Ed.

[High Wing Drifter]

I don't think you'll find many comments from people to have used more than one GS so getting an answer to a "which is best?" question is not really feasible.

Non of the GS are geared towards Airlines anymore than the JAA sylabus is. They are required to teach a range of subject that the JAA will examine you on. All the ground schools will cover the same things. The only possible difference in content that I could envisage is that some may home in on key areas that they think are examined heavily and lighten up on other areas, but I am not sure that is a viable view as nobody knows, except the JAA, what the question bank is.

If you do the ATPL full time then it maybe possible, with a fair wind, to do them in five months but you will be looking at about 6 hours study per day to acheive that (assuming you give yourself a rest at the weekends), which is one hell of a lot of work!! If you fail an exam at the end then add 2 months because of the required booking lead times.

I am using Bristol and at no point do I think they could have done it better. First class.

Good luck!
HWD

[sally at pprune]

Which groundschool? Use the search function. My vote is BGS who I used and could not fault; they are outstanding.

CPL or ATPL? I'd say go all the way (no comments boys). Alex, what would you advise?

[Northern Highflyer]

If there is any likelihood that you will want to move onto airline work then do the ATPL exams. As I understand it, the CPL and ATPL exams follow the same type of material. If you do the CPL first ans then go for IR as you mention in your post, I believe some of the material is duplicated, meaning you are doing "the same exam" twice if you go down this route.

I too am with BGS and don't think they are geared towards the airlines. As HWD mentioned, they teach the syllabus, which does involve some things to do with airlines (the instruments syllabus for example covers FMS, EFIS, etc) but it is not what you would call airline specific material.