Originally Posted by
ComeFlyWithB
I have looked into this but doesn’t it end up becoming more expensive overall ?
You could put it like that: about £-10,000 more expensive!
You should definitely do the maths yourself, but this is the cheapest way by FAR.
The most important thing to understand is what you need, what can be combined with what, and what order to do everything in. Plenty of people find themselves short of something down the line (usually night hours) and end up having to hour build twice..
The most expensive way is to hour build to 175, then do a CPL (200) hours THEN do a full IR (15 multi plus 40 sim reduced to 30 because of your CPL)
The next cheapest way is to do your IR first, and hour build to 185, finishing with a 15 hour CPL because of your IR (basically you replace 15 hours of hour building with your 15 hours multi, net saving 15 hours)
The CBIR is even cheaper, for two reasons: it's 10 hours fewer (45 vs 55)and you can do it all (or most of it) in an aircraft, which is much cheaper than the Sim. (The aircraft is free actually)
The downside to all of these options is that you have to fly 15 hours in a multi, that's where the expense lies. If only there was a way to avoid that... Well actually there are two: one is to convert a foreign IR the 'normal' way (10 hours SIM, 5 multi) - the other is to convert a foreign IR via the CBIR route which (as long as you have 50 hours IFR as PIC, again: free) requires no training, you can just take the test.
An FAA instrument rating might cost you £2000 (in instructor feed) but if (big IF) you are talented and spend your hour building wisely (you won't), at best your EASA IR is free, and at worst you save £2000 and break even anyway. Ok at worst you fail repeatedly and eventually die of old age...
When you take advice from an ATO, remember that they make money from you flying.