Hello all, great site by the way, ive been doing alot of reading and getting informed, however because this site is pruned so often i havent been able to find an answer to the following....
I am lucky enough to have dual citizenship, French (EU) and New Zealand (aus/nz basically). I live normally in Sydney Aust but am currently in Nice France visiting family and later backpacking northern Africa, Europe, and Asia I am 20 btw. Obviously you can see that travelling is no problem for me.
My questions are:
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**What are peoples oppinions on training in Aus/NZ or EU, from what I gather Aus will be cheaper than the UK but what about the rest of EU?
redsnail You would be better off using the Australian (or NZ) CPL to get a job flying in the great outback or Africa to build valuable and interesting experience before tackling Europe.
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** Irealise that if i gained my commercial license in Aus/NZ i would have to transfer to the EU equivilant which would be about 100 hours flight time am i correct or have i researched wrong?
redsnail Not quite right. If you hold an Australian CPL and IR (known as CIR = command instrument rating) then you'd have to do the flying to convert that, certainly wouldn't need 100 hours. The exact hours are a mystery to me. I did it another way. You'd also have to do the 14 JAA ATPL exams. If you'd done the Australian ATPL exams then you'd find that experience and knowledge a benefit.
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**If i do gain my comercial license i would have no problem working anywhere in the world, be it asia, africa, europe or aus/nz to gain hours and to see what division of flying is for me, commercial or whatever. I am also not against working for aid companies such as UN, Red Cross to get hours even if pay is only enough to survive, who knows maybe some years seeing whats going on in parts of the wolrd may be really beneficial to me, cant be dior and LV bags everywhere all the time can it?? For example would gaining my license in Aust make it difficult to gain work in Africa / EU and vice versa?
redsnailI believe there would be some form of conversion required for a SA license if you held an Aus/NZ lic. To convert the Aus to NZ or vice versa is extremely simple. It might only be a paper exercise, not sure. The 2 countries have aligned their respective authorities. You'd need to check with CASA (Australia) and NZ's regulatory authorities.
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**Is gaining a license in Africa a worthwhile idea to research into or is it different to EU / AU?
redsnail The Australian ATPL* (or CPL + CIR and ATPL exam subjects) is good for Asia and African nations. The conversion is usually an Air Law exam or something like that. Possibly an IR check ride etc. Those specific things you'd need to check.
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I am not asking for information on gaining medicals and trying a flight first, maybe this is a good idea for a sticky or adding into a FAQ because i havent found a thread where different countries have been summarised next to each other detailing, type of license, transf costs / procedures and likely hood of certain types of works on the different continents.
I realise this is a very detailed question but as it is answered even in parts I will edit my post so that individual questions have answers so it will be easy in the future for other people who search.
If i have overlooked a thread somewhere and this has been answered even in parts I am sorry, but as you can see I have put time into this so just let me know rather than flame. I also didnt post in the wannabe pilot thread that has been merged alot just incase it is suitable for another thread, if not please murge no issues here
Thank you in advance
Alex