PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Flight School in EU or US as US citizen living in EU
Old 14th Jan 2020, 16:47
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pedrothepilot
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
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In my personal experience, you will save time and money by choosing one or the other. Either EASA or FAA. So the question should be do you want to work and live in the US or in Finland/EU.

Firstly you need to check if you have the eligibility to work throughout the EU, if not you need to check if there is any job market in Finland alone, keeping in mind that you will not have very much experience to offer before your first job. If you can only work in Finland your job opportunities will be very limited I imagine. But check out Finnair and smaller operators requirements.

If you are willing to relocate to the US and work there, then it would be the better option as you have a much larger job market to choose from (because of your citizenship), and you would likely find a job. The market in the US is diverse and large, there is so much flying going on from GA to Airlines.

If your only choice is to stay in Finland because of your family life and you are determined to do an EASA licence: DO NOT go to the states for any training. I've done it, and you will spend much more and it is complicated to deal with the conversion. Ther is no conversion basically, you will be doing your licences twice. Unless you find an EASA school in the US, but they will be charging more than the average school because they are somewhat unique in the US.

Your best bet is to find a school in Central or Eastern Europe, the price will literally be 50 percent of what you pay in Western Europe or the US. And the over all outcome will be the same, you will have an EASA licence and be qualified to apply for the same job that someone who spent double the money you did. Not to mention the living costs in Poland v the US. I know people who went to a school called Bartollini in Poland (probably a lot of posts on this website about it), they had their CPL in just over a year and are now flying for a major low cost carrier.

Many will say that these schools arent as good, as ones in western europe. That is simply not the case, Poland for example has a long established aviation culture and some of the best pilots and instructors i've flown with were Polish. One of the main reasons Bartollini is much cheaper is because they use smaller, less powered aircrfat which use much cheaper fuel than the more traditional training aircrafts such as Cessnas etc. So the aircraft is underpowered, has a useless range, but for training and getting your licence, they tick all the boxes.

It really depends what you want. Go to your local flight school and get up for a flight, chat to the instructor there, get a taste for whats going on in Finnish aviation.

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