Local study, flying in the airspace I will be using and flying with local training for the IR, all seem an advatange to me.
You may be missing something here, echobeach.
The FAA accepts all foreign training, no matter where done. You don't need to train with an FAA instructor. You can train for all the requirements of any FAA license or a rating with for example a JAA instructor, in a G-reg.
Only the last 3 hours (which need to be done within the 60 days preceeding the checkride) need to be done - for practical reasons - with an FAA CFI/CFII.
This differs from JAA training which does not accept any training done elsewhere. You could be a 20,000hr ATP who clocked up his hours in the USA, Australia, etc, but the JAA IR will make you sit every hour with a JAA IR instructor, all over again. The only exception to this is when you are converting say an ICAO IR to a JAA one, when the 50/55hr min dual training requirements falls to around 15hrs. And there is a similar conversion route for ICAO PPLs (this is a UK only one, I believe).
I did all the flying requirements for the FAA PPL in the UK.
I did all the flying requirements for the FAA IR in the UK. Did some more flying in the USA because that's where the checkride was.
And I did the whole of the FAA CPL in the UK.
So, you can do your whole FAA IR training in the European airway system! Nothing gets better than that. Even JAA IR training contains very little airways flying (most of it is done on sims or OCAS), and practically no representative (long distance) airways flying.
Actually, you could do a load of JAA IR training here in the UK and then chuck it in and sod off to the USA and use every hour of those logbook entries towards an FAA IR. The FAA doesn't care what the original "purpose" of some flight was; why should they? If it meets the requirements it's good enough.
So you could do a load of JAA IR training, making sure (by an agreement with your instructor) that you are structuring some flights to also meet FAA IR requirements (e.g. the 250nm x/c flight with 3 diff approaches), and then you could use those flights to get an FAA IR, and if that N-reg twin is still around then you could go for that and either continue the JAA IR flying, or dump it.
Similarly, you could train in the Uk towards the IMC Rating, again making sure (by a private agreement with your instructor) that the flying is appropriately structured, and then, whether or not you have passed the IMCR, go for the FAA IR. The only trick here is that the 250nm x/c flight needs to be done in the airways so the instructor will need an IR and the plane will need to be airways legal. And then you could come back after a bit of time and get yourself a JAA IR with just 15hrs' flying and "just" sitting all the JAA exams
- a route which gets you flying IFR very quickly (in an N-reg) and saves a whole bundle of expensive JAA IR flight training.
Historically, many FAA training outfits around the UK used to claim that the only training that counts towards an FAA license/rating has to be done with FAA instructors. This is bollox
Obviously, the route to follow is the one which bets fits with your strategic objectives and which you can best fit into your life. Just remember that there is more than one way to get from A to B, and I have tried to illustrate a few options.
I have just spent 20 minutes listening to recorded messages at the FAA whilst waiting unsuccesfully to talk to someone.
Why? The FAA are pretty unresponsive at the best of times. But I never had any reason to talk to them, all the way from zero to the FAA CPL/IR.