Hi Blue Bug
I'll have to give you a little backround info first before I answer the question so just please bear with me. I completed my JAA PPL here in SA and shortly afterwards the school I went to went bankrupt. I converted my JAA PPL into a SA PPL fairly easily. All I had to do was the airlaw exam and a flight test. As far as I know, as some of my old JAA instructors did the conversion, you have to do all the ground school for the Sa CPL. Should be fairly easy for you as you obviously already have your ATp's. Im not too sure about the flying part though. I presume that its a case of a few hours in the air to get used to RT and to make sure your safe and then CPL test. You have to have 100hrs p1 and 15 hrs night, 50hrs cross country? to qualify for CPL. Im not too sure on the numbers. Since its an ICAO licence you only need 30 hrs instrument as opposed to 45 for JAA. As I said above, you definately have to do the therory side but the flying is really up to the FTO and the CAA. I would try and contact the SA CAA and speak to the head of the licencing department. Make sure that what the head tells you you get in writting as they could change their minds.
It all sounds fairly straight forward but the problem is once the licence has been issued being able to actually use it. There are few jobs here and if your not South African its virtually impossible to get a work permit.
Have you thought of where you would like to go to do the conversion? I can recommend a few places if your interested.
Hope this helps and I havent made you more confused.
Ciao
BL
