Flybywit, I'll try and clarify a few points you make. If the person in question has an IAA CPL, and does and IAA IR and then wants to gain employment with a British airline they will need to convert to a CAA licence. This, to the best of my knowledge is a paperwork, and money!, exercise. The reason for this is so the type rating examiner who is CAA licenced can sign off your paperwork for the TR which he or she could not do to an IAA licence.
If the candidate in question has done his/her CPL in Britian or Florida, where all the schools are working in the CAA system, and hence have a CAA CPL then they will be able to do the IAA IR
without converting their CAA CPL. The reason is that it is a rating and not a licence and because of the close ties between the CAA and IAA they will except each others ratings. So you will have a CAA CPL/IR, it wont say on the licence where you did the rating just that you have it.
I cant comment on the "non professional approach, as I havent attended ay of the Irish FTOs yet, but I am planning to do the IR here. A friend of mine has just finished his IR with a school in cork and had very good things to say about them, preofessionalism being one of them.
To alec: I will as I said be doing my IR shortly. I have done a lot of research into where to do. I am in a slightly different situation of having to do a conversion from FAA but the points are still the same. The major point is price. With the present exchange rates doing it in the UK is considerably more expensive. In fact I estimated that the average spend by students in the UK is about Stg 13,000 plus Test Fees. Your looking at almost the same numerical amount for doing it in Ireland but to convert 13 K sterling to Euro nyou need to multiply by 1.5. So a big difference as you can see. In fact 13K STG is EUR 19,595 so a big difference in price. Use this:
Currency Convertor
I have a little bit of contempt for the CAA IR. I know it is a very hard test but I think its a bit pompous. They seem to fail people for very trivial things. From what I hear the IAA one is a bit more realistic of what they expect and use real world tolerances.
I'll have to stop writing these 5,000 word posts, thats the second in so many days, I'll get feckin banned!
