I wonder what the possibility is of the current seven JAA IR exams being void if/when EASA brings in this crap, if you haven't done the IR checkride by then?
The recent CAA update on FCL details this.
Licensing and Training Standards | EASA | Safety Regulation
Para 3.4 refers. I can't paste because the PDF is secure. Basically, the current UK JAA exams are "old standard" and will be available from now until April 12. You must pass all these before April 12, they will then be valid for an EASA IR for up to 36mths (IIRC). BUT, if you take "old standard exams" and don't pass all 7 by April 12, you may need to retake the lot.
The "new standard exams" will be available from June 2011. If you have passed some but not all the papers by April 2012 to the new standard, no problem.
The issue (IIRC) is that a JAR FCL amendment to the written exams was passed several years ago, but the CAA have chosen not to implement this amendment for whatever reasons until now. I think this amendment has a meaningful slimming down of the IR syllabus (10-20%, still 7 exams). One has the choice of waiting for the new syllabus or taking the old one now. My concern would be with slippage in the June 2011 date. The CAA need to make the exams available, but also the schools have to have Approved courses and course materials etc etc. It wouldn't surprise me if there was some issues with timing and availability. It would be worth checking with the TK schools who do the IR. At the time of the transition to JAR-FCL, the IR was very poorly handled. There are now some UK schools who offer good support of IR-only candidates, so worth contacting them. Two I think are very good are GTS and CATS.
brgds
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