Getting a JAA/IR is much less onerous than it seems - although I have not quite finished mine yet
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When we initially started looking at the groundschool options most seemed to be of the opinion that we would need to join in with the ATPLers and do 2/3 weeks G/S - the requirement from the CAA is 10% of the theory portion of a distance learning course. Not sure how they get to the fuigure but LASORS has this at 200 hours so you need to do just 21/2 days in a classroom.
CATS at Cranfield were extremely helpful here and put on some Saturday classes so us busy business men did not need to give up too much time attending - this made a big difference to me.
The exams are pretty straight forward and out of the 30 or so of us who started most have sat about half of the exams (with a few of us having sat all of them) and I think there have only been two exams failed (and passed at resit) with quite a few of us passing all 7 exams on the minimum 2 days.
The flying side is of course fun and I am finding the guys at Wycombe very helpful. Again I am flying at weekends only and have managed to rack up about 35 hours in a/c and sim. I know a few who have started at Bournemouth and their feedback is also good.
As far as I can see (personal perspective) the ONLY downside to doing the JAA is the cost and by exptension the time. These are:
Groundschool £1K (we had a considerable discount by organising a large group of us)
exams at gatwick £70 each (plus hotel bills and probably a too large bar bill considering I had up tp 4 exams the next day)
Flying - mixture of 20 hours sim and 30 in a cesspit - might work out at about £11K - with some luck
It is relatively straight forward and pricy - buit a better option for me than taking time off to go to the states.