I have done both the CAA and FAA IR and i think that the CAA/JAA are just trying to stop private flight in class A airspace.
The CAA/JAA exams are far to academic for practical use the fuel flight plan is the worst example of the academic black art that the european exams have become.
On the other hand the FAA ground exams seem a little to easy and i think that a little more depth on tech and met subjects would not go amiss.
As to the flying exam a well trained monkey could do the european exam with enough practice as the exact form of the test is known well in advance and as long as you have the money you can go over and over it untill it is auotmatic, yes you have to fly the aircraft very precicly but the amount of thinking you do is not very high because you know what is coming next in the program.
The FAA exam was very practical with much more investigation of how you managed the aircraft when the examiner changed the situation ,you have to think "on your feet" as you find your self diverting to a place you did not know existed untill two seconds ago to do a single engine NDB app to a circle to land. In all it was a very revealing test that would show far more about how you would fly in the future than the european flight test and the compleat absence of bul$h1t was a god send.
The whole FAA system works on the pracitcal application of flying skills and this is reflected in the CPL and Flight engineer exams the latter of which is the most extreme example of the diference in the exam systems.
The best advice i can give to you is to do the FAA IR and get your aircraft on the american register and stick two fingers up to the JAA.
[ 06 September 2001: Message edited by: A and C ]