Originally Posted by
Smitty06
Applogies for not understanding. I think I missed the mark on doing as little ME hours as possible? Also unsure how the conversion between a SE IR -> MEIR or CBIR works? I've seen a few job adds specifically stating you need MEIR.
Guessing then it should have been PPL-> Nigh Rating ->SE IR -> MEP -> Upgrade to MEIR/CBIR (with least ME hours possible) -> CPL?
In terms of hours, am I incorrect in there is a requirment of 150 hours to start a CPL(A) class?, which gives another 25 hours & to get sign off you need 200 hours total PIC?
I've got a little more time on my hands now...
In a nutshell the best way to save money is to do as few Sim and multi hours as possible - because sim hours are
generally unnecessary and multi hours are expensive.
The CPL has the highest hour requirement (200) so it makes sense to do that last and finish with 200 hours. Why anyone would get 200 hours
then pay another £15k on top of that for 15 MEP hours and 35 Sim hours is beyond me.
10 hours is common to both the CPL and IR, meaning if you get your IR first your CPL is only a 15 hour course.
You can do your CPL in a multi OR you can get your MEP and do your CPL in a single (in any order) you don't need to do both.
The PIC requirements are 50 for IR, 70 for your MEP and 100 for your CPL.
There are about 7 or 8 different ways to get an IR but the cheapest is (one of) the CBIR routes: IRR then CBIR. Its 15 hours dual, 15 hours PIC then either 10 hours dual in a single engine or 15 hours multi.
To get an initial IR in a multi requires 15 hours, to convert an SEIR to MEIR only requires 2. Savings can be from 0-13 hours depending on ability.
An IR can be done partly using Sim hours. Sim hours don't count to your CPL. You'll be amazed how many people pay £150 per hour for 200 hours airplane rental
then pay £150 per hour to spend 35 hours simulating what they could have done for free during their hour building (ok, technically free + instructor cost.)
Another way to look at it: Lets say your school offers IRR training for £210 and hour building for £150.
An IRR+CBIR will cost you (210×15)+(150×15)+(210×10) = £6750. That's already pretty cheap but now consider that you were going to pay £6000 to fly those hours anyway - you just got an IR for less than a grand in instructors fees. Compared to the most expensive option of CPL then IR you're effectively writing off training cost against hour building.