Background
I have done my JAA PPL with Orlando Flight Training (Florida) in september/october 2005. Since then I have answered a lot of questions about how this is possible, and how best to go about doing this. I have also written an article about this which appeared in the Dutch aviation magazine Piloot en Vliegtuig (January 2006). Since then I have gotten feedback, learned a few new things about this process, and also learned that some processes (particularly the TSA permission thing) have changed.
In this three-article series I'm trying to summarize the whole process, with the aim of helping other interested flight students make a good decision on whether to do JAA flight training abroad or not, and if they do so, help them along.
Four questions you should ask yourself
Question 1. Do I want to obtain a JAA PPL?
Strange question? You want to fly in Europe, so you need a JAA PPL, not? Well, not necessarily.
It is absolutely undeniably true that the JAA PPL is the "golden standard" when it comes to private flying in any JAA country. It allows you to fly internationally in a JAA-registered aircraft without any hassle. You can fairly easily obtain a PPL from another (non-JAA) country, based on your JAA PPL, and then rent aircraft in that other country. You can add all sorts of valuable things to it, like an Instrument Rating (IR) or a multi-engine endorsement. And it is an absolute necessity if you ever want to fly commercially. But it is not the only license that allows you to fly an aircraft. And other licenses are cheaper and easier, sometimes even much cheaper and easier to obtain.
What other licenses you can obtain that allow you to fly an aircraft ("aircraft" in the broadest sense: powered or powerless, heavier or lighter than air) depends on the country you live in (as these are generally not internationally recognised certificates), but most countries have a "National PPL" which allows you to fly on the same aircraft as a PPL, but not internationally, and most countries have separate licenses for gliders and microlights. If all you want is to experience the magic of flying, perhaps these other licenses are good enough. They are certainly cheaper.
Oh, and let's not forget the possibility of obtaining an American (FAA) PPL. This allows you to fly, within the JAA member states, on an N-reg (US registered) aircraft. Depending on the exact type of aircraft you want to fly, there may be issues with getting it transferred from the N (US) to a European register, particularly if it's a vintage aircraft without a Certificate of Airworthiness. Also, the FAA IR is much easier to obtain than the JAA IR (at this point in time), so there are a lot of people who deliberately get an FAA PPL+IR, buy (a share in) an N-reg aircraft, and fly that N-reg aircraft, in IMC, on IFR flight plans, throughout Europe. Simply because they do not want to learn all the theory that the JAA thinks is required for a JAA PPL+IR.
Question 2. Do I want to obtain my JAA PPL through an intensive course?
If you go to the US to do your JAA flight training, you're going to end up in an intensive course. But you can also do intensive courses at virtually any flight school local to where you live, if you ask. And there are a few European schools that specialize in these intensive courses. (Look in the back pages of your favourite aviation magazine to obtain a list.) Provided the weather is okay, such an intensive course will last about three weeks.
During these three weeks you've got to fly 45 hours. That means you're going to average 2.5 to 3 hours flight time (usually spread out over two flights) per day. Each flight requires preparation and a de-brief. In addition to this you will need to do seven theoretical exams and an R/T practical exam. The skill test itself will take half a day and you might need to visit the Sherrifs office and a doctor upon arrival - another half day gone. An intensive course really is a full-time affair and you should not expect to be able to do anything else besides flight training. Can you handle this? Is your family and your work OK with you being gone for three weeks? And do you have the funds available to pay for all this outright?
If that's the case, fine. If you do not have the funds available, if you cannot take time off work, if you get homesick quickly, do not go on an intensive course, not at home, not anywhere else in Europe and not in the US. Do your PPL part-time, one or two lessons a week, and you should be doing your exam after half a year to a year.
Question 3. Do I want to obtain my JAA PPL through an intensive course outside a JAA state (typically the US)?
As said, you can do intensive courses everywhere, although flight schools within Europe typically do not advertise this strongly. But at most places, instructors can be booked by the hour and if you have a chat with them beforehand I'm pretty sure only few would object to being scheduled to fly with you twice each day for a period of 21 days straight.
Having said that, there are a few advantages to flight training in the US:
- The flight schools that offer these packages are very used to intensive courses, have lodging available, have full-time instructors available, have maintenance organizations readily available and so forth, to make sure there's only limited chance for "snags" that hold up your training.
- Flying in the US is much cheaper per hour than flying in Europe. Sales and fuel taxes are much lower, and virtually no airfield charges a landing fee for VFR flights. The current exchange rate of the Euro vs. the Dollar also helps a lot.
- Airspace division, and therefore flight rules and R/T are simpler, when compared to the European situation. Also, air traffic control and air traffic services are much better used to and equipped to handle VFR flights. (1-800-WX-Brief, Flight Watch and Flight Following comes to mind.)
- In the places where the CAA-approved flight schools are found (Florida and South California) weather is generally much more flyable and in any case better predictable than in most parts of Europe.
Undeniably, there are disadvantages too:
- You're away from home, in a different timezone, in a different culture. Everybody speaks English (not a problem if you're from the UK, but if you're from, let's say, Italy, it might be). If you're homesick easily, well...
- There's a significant amount of bureaucracy required: You need TSA clearance and you need an M-1 visa. Obtaining this may take two months from start to finish, and both are linked directly to the flight school you're training with. So you can't easily change flight schools if the one you happen to have selected doesn't suit you.
- If anything happens that seriously upsets the schedule (like getting sick, falling out with the flight school, severe weather) you're stuck with not a lot of options than to go home without a PPL. How bad this is depends on what happened, and whether you can continue where you left off later or not.
Question 4. Is it really cheaper?
How much money you spend on flight training differs greatly with the type of aircraft you fly, the amount an instructor charges you for instruction, the package deal you can get at a flight school and a load of other factors. In my case, I have found that the US route was significantly cheaper than training in the Netherlands. And that was before the rise of the Euro against the Dollar. But it is a good idea to work out the costs involved for yourself in any case and compare it to the cost of training locally.
Here are the factors that you need to take into account when you do the comparison:
- Cost of the JAA/CAA study books and the PPL Confuser (about EUR 170-200 if bought online)
- Cost of medical examinations: you need a JAA class 2 in any case (about EUR 350), and an additional FAA class 3 (about USD 100) if you go to the US.
- M-1 visa: about EUR 100 altogether and half a day off work. More if you live a significant distance away from the nearest embassy or consulate.
- TSA clearance, fingerprinting: about USD 155 altogether. More if you do fingerprinting in Europe, and need to travel a significant distance to one of the locations where this can be done. See below.
- Cost of the flight to the US. But also take into account the cost of traveling to the local airport/flight school at least some 50 times, if you stay at home.
- Base price of the package, for the ground school, use of facilities, theory exams and so forth
- 45 flight hours plus possibly a fuel surcharge
- 25 instruction hours (and does your instructor get paid for flight time only, or for block hours?)
- Insurance, damage waiver
- Landing fees if you stay at home (expect to make 100+ landings or touch & gos over the course of your PPL training)
- Hardware like a headset, kneeboard, fuel tester (USD 150-200 if you buy it there, far more if you buy it in Europe)
- Paperwork like charts, POH, checklists, logbook, AFD (about USD 100 altogether)
- Accomodation and living expenses
- Exam costs for the R/T practical and the skills test
- CAA license issue fee and the conversion (if needed) of a CAA/JAA PPL to one issued by your own aviation organization
- Cost of doing a thorough check-out, with a bit of ground school (see below) once you get back.
Most of this information can be obtained easily from the website of your flight school of choice, or from other sources. For prices that might not readily available I have listed (above) what I paid, end of 2005.
How does this JAA flight training thing work in a non-JAA country?
First a bit of background on the JAA (Joint Aviation Authorities). The JAA is an organization that has been started by the national aviation authorities of several European states, to obtain consensus over various aspects of aviation. One aspect of this is Flight Crew Licencing. The JAA organization proposes rules on this, and writes them down in the JAR-FCL (Joint Aviation Regulations - Flight Crew Licensing). These rules are then enacted into local law by the respective countries. In the UK for instance, it's the ANO (Air Navigation Order) which contains all the rules, but these rules will (largely) be the same as what can be found in Dutch or Spanish law, for instance.
Somewhere in 2008, the EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) is going to take over Flight Crew Licensing from JAA. The EASA is an organization which is part of the European Union, and as such can make rules/laws which automatically become valid in all EU-countries. However, the practical aspects of Flight Crew Licensing are not expected to change much.
As part of the Flight Crew Licensing task, each national aviation organization certifies Flight Training Organizations (FTOs). Typically, these flight schools are local, but the UK CAA has also certified a few oversees flight schools. This means that these schools are certified to provide flight training and flight exams, according to the CAA syllabus, which is in turn derived from the JAA syllabus. If you pass all the exams and the experience requirements, what you get is a CAA issued, JAA (JAR-FCL) conforming PPL. Even though you've never flown in UK airspace. As all JAA countries recognise each others PPLs by default, this little brown booklet allows you to fly an aircraft registered in any JAA member state, worldwide.
The CAA is the only JAA member that certifies foreign flight schools. As such, the list of Approved Flight Training Organizations, which can be found on the CAA website (
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/SRG_FCL_APPROVEDFTOS.PDF) is the only definitive authoritative list of places where you can obtain a JAA PPL outside the JAA member states. At present there are four schools in Florida, one in Southern California and one in Canada but obviously those numbers will change over time.
This article is not a review of each and every school. Since nobody has been to all of them, nobody is in any position of authority to write such a review. Search the internet forums (
www.pprune.org), read the reviews and bear in mind that somebody with a negative experience is more likely to write about it than somebody with a neutral or positive experience.
There is one general consideration though. If you go to Florida, try to avoid Hurricane Season, which runs roughly from April to October, or allow some 30% extra time in your schedule. Even a nameless, medium sized tropical storm can make flying hard to impossible for about three days. A hurricane may lead to the evacuation of the whole school for a couple of days. And we all remember what Katrina did to New Orleans, don't we?