JAA PPL Training in USA

[rneilharvey]

At the ripe age of 62 I decided to learn to fly. I live on Alderney in the Channel Islands - great island, nice airport, super Instructor - crap weather. I have now had 3 lessons in 7 months! I want to learn and qualify here, but at this rate I will be over 100 by the time I go solo, if that's legal! My instructor says I am doing great, and encourages me, but then another month goes by with too much wind, too little vis, or the Club planes in use!

I am not keen to do 3/4 weeks intensive in Florida, but I wouldn't mind going there for 3 weeks and just adding to my hours/experience, hopefully in a Warrior. Not perfect, but hey it seems to be that or take up bungey jumping instead.

Any ideas out there - I want some sun early next year, can I find a school to do me a few hours instruction?:ugh:

[dont overfil]

rneilharvey
Something wrong here. I learned to fly in the country that invented cr@p weather and with one Sunday morning and sometimes one evening per week I got my licence in eight months.
It is very difficult to learn to fly if you are only available once every two weeks or so. That is when other issues such as weather or aircraft and instructor availability become such a problem.
I don't know your circumstances but I suggest you book the instructor and aircraft on a regular basis months ahead. Learning to fly is no easy ride and it takes 100 percent commitment from you as well.
If what I am suggesting is not the problem then learning to fly somewhere else may be the answer but an intense course does not sound like fun.
DO.

[BackPacker]

If you go to Florida (or California - there's a JAA school there too) it doesn't make sense to go there just to do a few hours. You're going to have to obtain TSA approval in any case, and arguably an M-1 visa too - depending on what you and the friendly INS officer at the border would consider to be your "primary reason" for visiting the USA. And you're going to need an FAA Class 3 medical to fly solo. That's a lot of work plus some significant cost for just a few hours of flying lessons.

If you decide to go to the USA for flight training, I think you should go all the way and aim to do your exam there too.

[rneilharvey]

Thanks everyone.

It wasn't just the weather - a few fine days were lost owing to aircraft needing maintenance/airworthiness certification etc., more were lost because the aircraft was in use by other club members (they only have one plane). Final straw was when plane was OK, instructor OK, weather OK - bloody hell, the airport fuel tanker was broken, so no refueling!

But I really love this quirky little island, as do many flyers, so I guess I will persevere - is there a record for the slowest PPL qualification?

P.S. - is that an anticyclone I spy creeping up on us next week - bet the plane is due for a service

[englishal]

You could always head to Jersey or the mainland for a few days and bang out a number of hours at somewhere like Old Sarum or Bournemouth? Happy to give you a lift to / from Alderney if you buy me a pasty at Alderney Airport :}(I have friends there so always happy to visit)....

Last year one of our group did his entire PPL in 3 months of weekends and Friday afternoons at Bournemouth, from about June - Aug, so it is possible.

if they find that there is no visa and the student is taking flying lessons they will jump down hard and make life bad.
Not to bring this old one up again ;) but it is the word "Visa" that causes so much confusion. I await definitive proof that an M1 visa is required for flight training, if someone posts a link to the INS website that specifically says this then I will retract my statement and change my view ;)

[Cropper]

What do people do for their groundschool element when in US? Is it provided by the schools??

[patowalker]

You can get flight training under the Visa Waiver system, if you have another legitimate reason to visit the US.

I visit my daughter once or twice a year and last July, while there on a Visa Waiver, I went to a school and applied to the TSA for permission to undertake flight training. Sent in all the papers, including a scan of the Immigration stamp in my passport and got authority within 2 weeks. The local police even paid for my parking when I went to the station to get fingerprinted.

[BackPacker]

What do people do for their groundschool element when in US? Is it provided by the schools??

At OFT, when I was there, they had a three-week cycle (mo-fr) in which they covered all subjects for the PPL in evening classes. This was serious cramming, with no time whatsoever to cover anything in depth. This groundschool cycle was contained in the package deal.

My advice: do NOT count on these evening classes to prepare you for the PPL theory. Study beforehand using the books and the confuser, and come prepared to sit all your exams in the first week. If you fail an exam, do not go to the (free) evening classes but simply hire an instructor for an hour or so one-on-one groundschool.

[englishal]

Will it stop some individuals from coming to the US under Visa waiver etc and trying to get Flight Training - probably not. If they got caught and kicked out - would they tell folks on PPRuNe - probably not..
I have a visa - a B1OCS but not an M1.

If travelling to the USA for a primary reason that is not flight training - i.e. a business meeting, then I can undertake flight training as I have entered the country on a visa and are doing vocational training of less than 18 hrs per week.....When I did the seaplane rating I never got an M1, because I was there for another reason and decided to add the SSEA rating as a recreational course "for fun" of 6 hrs.....no M1 required.

US pilot factories "play it safe", and they don't know the different classes of visa any more than the INS ;) and so they automatically say "M1"....But the difference between an M1 and say B1/B2 is chalk and cheese - a B1/B2 is multi entry and valid for 10 years and is easy to get.

Of course if your course is a long course (0 to ATP for example) then an M1 is a better visa to get as it allows one to earn money whilst doing "training" for your course of study - i.e. a Flight Instructor on a "0 to ATP course" can earn money as a FI /Fly King Airs to support the remainder of his course (i.e. the ATP).....

Actually when a visa waiver is stamped, you are either stamped in B1 or B2 anyway - business or pleasure - no difference from a visa at all. So in effect you have entered the country on a B1/B2 and can still visit those business meetings, or lay on the beach even though there is no visa.

[patowalker]

SoCall App

You once wrote:

"You can indeed submit TSA approval on arrival in the US - but you will then have to sit and wait for as long as the CAA and FAA take to process the application and no training can be undertaken in the meantime till the TSA say so. So that would be a complete waste of time.
Plus- suppose the TSA were to reject the submission?
Far better to get it submitted and approved before getting on a flight to the US."

Two weeks is not long to wait, especially when the training can continue on a subsequent trip.

[Jofm5]

"You can indeed submit TSA approval on arrival in the US - but you will then have to sit and wait for as long as the CAA and FAA take to process the application and no training can be undertaken in the meantime till the TSA say so. So that would be a complete waste of time.
Plus- suppose the TSA were to reject the submission?
Far better to get it submitted and approved before getting on a flight to the US."



On the same thread I believe your quoting I also pointed out that TSA apporval can be transmitted same (Working) day and that training can commence as soon as the TSA have acknowledged receipt of the relevant information. And IIRC this was disputed despite it being clearly stated on the TSA website.

[BackPacker]

that training can commence as soon as the TSA have acknowledged receipt of the relevant information.

Whether this is true depends on the type of training you're going to do. Details on the TSA website, but for some types of training you can start as soon as the TSA acknowledges receipt of your fingerprints, and other types you can only start once the TSA has finished the background check.

The TSA simply state that if the individual is found to not have the correct visa they will then take action.

That's not quite true, I think. This is from the FAQ on the TSA website:

What happens if I take flight training without having the proper visa?

AFSP may cancel an applicant's flight training request if AFSP becomes aware the candidate is intending to take flight training without the appropriate immigration status. If you have questions about a cancelled request, you may call AFSP at (571) 227-4544.

So what you need is an "appropriate immigration status". I still believe that being admitted under the terms of the VWP would be an "appropriate immigration status" as long as you abide by the rules and regulations of the VWP. And one of those rules is that your primary reason is short-term business or tourism, not flight training.

Also, if you look at the Interim Final Rule (http://www.tsa.gov/assets/pdf/IFR_Alien_Pilot.pdf) and search for the word visa, you will notice that it never mentions the word visa as a hard requirement. The word is used, but in the context of submitting your passport and visa details if applicable, and so forth. So TSA simply defers to the USCIS rules on visa requirements.

Of course, this is all very easy to type from the comfort of my own home. It's a different matter trying to convince a TSA auditor that you are following USCIS rules to the letter when you are found training under the VWP. So despite all this: play it safe and if there's any doubt, get a visa.

[englishal]

To undertake training - you have to be 'sponsored' by the Flight School
To be sponsored the Flight School has to be SEVIS
Only 141 ops only though.

Catch 22 - you can only get an M1 visa from a flight school which has SEVIS and the only ones that do are 141 schools.

So it is a nice little earner for the 141 schools - "you need an M1 therefore you must go to a 141 school because they are the only ones that have SEVIS" - which is why they keep going on about it.

However, if like me, you do/did all your training under pt 61 (i.e. freelance instructor), who don't have SEVIS and therefore can't sponsor you for an M1 then I assume that alternative immigration status is ok, because you are not doing a course of study which requires an M1....

Just my interpretation of course ;)

[englishal]

Yes but I have been on company training courses under the visa waiver and that is allowed - stamped in as B1 - and INS had no issues with this.

Theoretically to do an approved course, for which the Visa was issued, it'd have to be under pt 141. As you say, most are not anyway, and therefore you are probably not doing the course under the terms of the visa. Many flight schools who are not Pt 141 use their "mates" school to do the visa stuff and then they come to the pt 61 school on arrival. It is all a paperwork game and a waste of time getting worried about.

Anyway, I don't really care. If I really did want to "steal an american's job" (which I was accused of once by an INS official) or remain illegally, I'd just apply for a green card ;)

[IO540]

SoCal

That NYT article states

Last year alone, 2.9 million foreign visitors on temporary visas like Mr. Smadi’s checked in to the country but never officially checked out, immigration (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) officials said. While officials say they have no way to confirm it, they suspect that several hundred thousand of them overstayed their visas.

This doesn't mean a great deal unfortunately, because countless millions of tourists enter the USA every year, filling in those cards, but it is (or used to be until very recently) up to the airline to collect the cards from people leaving, and usually the airline can't be bothered, and neither can be the tourist.

So I reckon half the world must be sitting on the USCIS computer and showing as still somewhere in the USA. I may well still be there myself :)

USCIS is in a very bad state, full of semi illiterate (but often aggressive, and always armed) ex McDonalds type workers. I got pulled up a couple of years ago, on a brief business trip, because I had an expired M1 visa in my passport, and the name of the school on it showed up on their computer as me not having finished my flight training. Actually I never even went to that school (a bunch of illiterates in Arizona) because they refused to communicate with me and would only talk with the UK instructor who was their agent here, and the M1 was sent to him, but he was abroad, so it was lost. I had to re-do the whole process again with another SEVIS P-141 school, also in AZ... anyway, I got a very unpleasant interrogation in a room full of utterly miserable African immigrants, and when I finally bumped into a person who looked like he had more than 2 braincells and told him they can easily verify my completed training using faa.gov, he said USCIS has no means of accessing the internet ;)

The 3hr delay nearly caused me to miss the connecting flight but I was lucky as it was a lot later.

In the meantime, their "work to rule" (1 stand manned for a huge # of arrivals) meant that practically everybody arriving that day missed their connecting flights too. Did Immigration care? No, they couldn't give a t*ss.

And this isn't my only, or least unpleasant, experience of US Immigration.

The rest of America is perfectly nice and friendly :)

So, is it any wonder that no two people get the same answer from these IQ=20 morons?

Personally, I would suggest getting the visa and TSA both done for any training in the USA - except where clearly exempted and in that case I would get neither and say nothing whatsoever to USCIS.

[Cropper]

Backpacker - ah ok thanks for your info. I'm glad they do the evening classesas I need that interactivity to give me a boot up the rear! Now jut to decide on whether to bog off to States to do it or not....decisions decisions....

Anyways, will get back to the books now...yawn!

[englishal]

What about the J1 visa then for flight training ;)