FAA CFI to JAA FI in the UK
I have been considering posting this for quite a while but finally decided to do it the other day.
About a year ago I returned from America and started converting my US certificates to JAA Licences. I gained a Private then Commercial then Flight Instructor on the basis of FAA equivalent.
After completing the check ride for Flight instructor rating in the UK I sent the paperwork to the CAA to ask for it to be issued unrestricted.
I know some of you think this was crazy, but upon reading Lasors the ANO and Jar FCL 2 I at the time had the requirements for the issue of an unrestricted Licence. No where does it say the 100hr and 25 Solo air exercises have to be for JAR Training.
Unsurprisingly the CAA were unwilling to provided me with said licence and instead issued me with a Restricted FI.
After about 6 months of “discussions” with them they finally lifted the restriction (I still did not have 100hr or 25 solo air exercises under JAR), but not before I went through a Regulation 6 Review. ( I still had to send the paperwork in again and send them the money)
Some interesting things came up in the review some of which I think are important to people who will be in the future returning from America or any where else for that matter.
The main things were that:
1) They are willing to accept experience of instructing from 141 Schools in America. (Equivalent to a FTO in many ways)
2) The 100hrs and 25 Solo air exercises are not as important as the supervising instructor saying they are suitable to work with out supervision. There is effectively no minimum Hours needed teaching in the JAR environment. They were unwilling to state any minimums when I asked them only they would look at each individual case.
3) The review panel felt that the CAA should have used there discretion when I first asked for the licence to be issued unrestricted.
Hope this helps some people out there and if anybody has any questions send me a message.
Lioncopter