winguru,
A summary for you based on the following facts
- You intend to purchase an N-registered aircraft and operate it for a period of time on the N-reg (both in the US and overseas
- Your pilot does not have adequate time to be insurable in the US
- Your pilot has a foregin PPL, some instrument instruction (if by an IR instructor this should count towards his 15 hours)
- Has some instrument time (which also counts towarrds the 40 hours total)
- You imply will have a based on licence (note - it is not that much more work to get a standalone and you can probably knock off some instrument time while doing it)
- You have found a US school that will allow your chosen instructor to train for the IR and type checkout
- Your chosen instructor is insurable in the US to operate and train in a Meridian
Assuming the above is correct, you
- MUST purchase the aircraft with a proper structure (normally a Trust). THIS IS NOT AN OPTION, the aircraft is not legally registered if it is not owned by a US Citizen. All countries will prosecute you for operating an unregistered aircraft if you do not do this correctly.
- You MUST comply with any underlying restriction in your PPL upon whcih you base your FAA PPL. In the case of the JAA PPLs this means (I believe) that you can not operate the Meridan without a type rating - and the fact you have a based on FAA PPL does not remove this restriction. Your FAA based on PPL does not give any additional privileges over your foreign PPL.
- Subject to a legally registered aircraft, your instructor being a CFII, TSA, VISA, insurance as stated above, you can do the IR and type sepecific training together.
- It is worth the owner considering the following - Pilots of this class of aircraft that have neither a type rating nor FS/SimCom type mandatory insurance training kill themselves at a disproportionate rate
- Your experienced instructor (assuming he has ferry experience) shoud be able to be insured for the crossing so that should not be an issue