Help!

[itsallhappeningagain]

Hello all,

Have recently been chopped from helicopter training at Shawbury (bugger) and currently looking into working my way towards fATPL(A). I have about 65 hours fixed wing from elementary flying training (will finish PPL shortly by using various exemptions and doing a couple of flights) and about 40 rotary from Shawbury and have a few questions

1. How much hours building would I have to do prior to CPL course (struggle to make sense of LASORS with what I could count)?

2. Am quite bewildered by the choice of schools to choose from, Flying Time at Shoreham looks quite promising - modern fleet, glass cockpits, price etc, Tayside Aviation and Great Circle another couple i'm looking into. Anyone have any experience of them, or indeed anywhere else to recommend (for training or hours building), regardless of location

3. ATPL Theory, is it worth going full time groundschool, perhaps running the hours building concurrently or fairly easily managed distance learning? CATS and Bristol seem to be highly spoke of, any experience of Flying Times?

Thanks

[madlandrover]

This won't help much with your situation, but...

It's not all doom and gloom out there. I was chopped at RNEFT FHT stage a few years back, now teaching PPL/IMC/ME/CPL for a living with a fair bit of AOC work coming up before long.

1) You'd need 150TT to start a CPL course and 200 hours on aeroplanes for CPL issue - aeroplanes, as opposed to helicopters. There are allowances for rotary flying for PPL(H), CPL(H) or QSP(H) holders, but as far as I can see that wouldn't apply to the training at DHFS. You can expect between 23 and 28 (P/UT) actual aeroplane hours on the CPL course depending on the approvals and course type (eg some MECPL courses include 5 hours sim time), with a 2 hour test. The IR gets you 15 to 25 hours actual aeroplane time, again with a 2 hour test on top. The other main requirement is 100 hours PIC on aeroplanes pre-CPL issue, as well as a night qualification pre-CPL or IR test.

2) I'm biased towards my own organisation, so no names. Do however find a school that you're happy with that has suitable aircraft and experience of the courses.

3) A few different opinions here. The residential groundschool is more expensive but also more tightly scheduled - don't plan to have a huge amount of spare time though if you're keeping the workload up! Distance learning works well in conjunction with a bit of flying to keep motivation up, Bristol have a great course and superb instructors.

Good luck!!