Thanks for the compliments gents. Nice to hear that some people do read that (very long) article.
Couple of notes:
- As sternone says, if your eventual aim is an ATPL, it is worth considering saving up and doing everything in one go. If you do it in two steps, you lose a lot of money because, for starters, you've got to remain current in between.
- If you think you're being ripped off, check out the website and consider the FAA PPL prices vs. the JAA PPL prices. They use the same instructors, the same aircraft and the same facilities. It's only the syllabus that's different (but that doesn't lead to a price difference) and the examiners (R/T and skills) need to be JAA ones (which makes them more expensive, but that's only a few hundred dollars in total)
- To the best of my knowledge, currently there's only one school in Canada, one in California and two or three in Florida that offer direct JAA training. (Check the CAA document to make sure.) Any other school that claims to do JAA training will do a circuitous route, where you get another PPL first and then convert that to a JAA one. That would be the case for any school located in Australia or NZ.
Oh, and I saw an ad for a new JAA school in, I think, Arizona, here on PPRuNe a while ago. Looked promising but I never checked it out in detail.
- If all you want is a JAA ATPL, you need to know that the entry for a JAA CPL is an ICAO PPL. It doesn't have to be a JAA PPL. So if you get an Australian or FAA PPL, then that's good enough for your JAA CPL/ATPL. Plus, the CAA allows people on an FAA PPL (and maybe on an Australian PPL too, I don't know) to fly a G-reg, VFR without too much hassle. Recently someone claimed that you can even take that G-reg abroad on your FAA PPL, again VFR, but I simply do not know enough about this subject to confirm or deny. Disadvantage is that any ratings that you add to your FAA PPL, like IR or ME, are NOT valid in a G-reg. You need to find an N-reg for that.
- My initial response from OFT was, well, not incorrect English, but it looked like it had been put together in great haste. I guess they receive dozens of enquiries by e-mail daily, all asking for what's essentially already mentioned on the website. So they've got a standard text they send out. But it would have helped if they would have proofread that text, and structured it a bit better, I agree. Once you start asking specific things I find you get a far more decent answer, although it might take a few days. Me personally, I wouldn't mind going there again. But I've also heard a lot of good things about AAA.
- If you want to start training in March, and you want to go to the USA, better start hurrying now. Particularly the visa application may take two months from start to finish, and you should also count on some serious studying time - it took me a month to go through all the books, confuser, practice exams etc, dedicating about one to two hours each night. As I said in the article, do not rely solely on the evening groundschool that the school may offer.