At the Norwich organisation, one can do a standalone FAA PPL for about £1300, or a piggyback one for about £250. All in the UK.
The S/A cost is based on three hours (their min requirement) in their Archer, plus the checkride in their Archer, and there is a £500+VAT charge for the checkride.
They cannot train in G-reg.
So, for the FAA IR, for any presently-G-reg pilots it would make sense to find a JAA IR instructor and then do the last few hours at the FAA place. But then one is flying a completely different type which messes up one's currency on type.... how do people get around this?
One could
1. Get the FAA medical
2. Get the FAA PPL at Norwich for £1300 in their N-reg Archer (even I could fly an Archer, VFR
)
3. Put the plane on the N-reg (then you can fly UK/abroad, VMC but your IMC Rating becomes worthless)
4. Do the FAA IR at Norwich
Is there another way? What I really want is an instructor who can teach the FAA PPL/IR in my G-reg plane.
Incidentally, there is a big gotcha for the S/A FAA PPL, and that is a 100nm cross country night flight. Depending on where one is located, this could be very hard to do in the UK because most airfields close too early. One has to find two airfields at least 100nm apart, and fly between them after official night (which
AFAIK is 30 mins after offocial sunset).