The 18 month timescale begins at the end of the sitting of the first exam I believe. You can however take as long as you like to learn the material before your first exams as an enrolled modular ATPL student. An integrated school does it over 6 months full time and usually takes 2 sittings which is a lot of knowledge and exams to do in that time period. It does often work but it’s not feasible if like me you want to work and learn.
Well not necessarily, I am still flying whilst learning my ATPL exams. Once you have your PPL, you can start to hour build to the 150h total time requirement and 100 of those hours must be Pilot in Command which is the crucial part. You must have 45 hours total time to do a PPL skills test so that’s nearly 50 hours straight away that also gives you with a licence to go flying when you want and nearly 50 hours off your goal of 150h to start the advanced training. I have a local flying club that I can go do 2 hours flying on a day off from studying/work for example. The great thing about modular training is there is no set way or method for everyone. You can do whatever suits you in terms of how you learn and progress.
By the time I finish the exams, I will probably need to go to somewhere like Spain for 2 weeks to do 50-60 hours flying to get my hours up to requirements to start the ME/IR/CPL training straight away. this is the hour building stage you hear people talking about but like I say, there is nothing to stop you doing it before your exams are complete if you have the licence to do so.
Last edited by GAPilot261087; 4th Mar 2018 at 00:12.