At the risk of telling you what you surely know already, with an A licence you can, after receiving the company authorisation, sign off your own work on a number of mundane tasks. You'll probably be required to do a Gen Fam course on the aircraft you are working on.
A B1 has to sign off an unlicensed fitter's work, no matter how simple.
Ipso fatso, with an A Licence you are worth more to the organisation.
With your background you should sail through the exams. While you are building a log-book with the A licence for your 5 years experience, you can be working through the Cat B Module exams.
When you have the Modules and the 5 years documented experience, you get a B Licence.
You may be able to count the 2 years you have already, so you could get to the B Licence in 3 years if you can pass all the Module exams in that period, while you are working (and earning).
If you do a Part 147-approved full-time 2 year course, you need only 3 years experience, as well as the approved course, which is 5 years total just as with the "unapproved route".
Similarly, the experience you need to get would be reduced to 1 year if your 2 years can be counted.The total time would then be 3 years, just like the unapproved route. But for 2 of those you would be a non-earning student, and you may have to pay some or all the course costs about £15,000 plus food and accommodation).
So there's no advantage to going down the approved route. An A Licence will make the process of getting the B Licence a lot easier, so go for it. It'll cost you the exam and application fees, and perhaps some travel to the exam centre. Simple, isn't it?
Ignore the diehards mumbling "A Licence is effin useless, I want to stay a low-paid mechanic". You use it to earn better money while you work for the B Licence.
Mind you, if you are with little aeroplanes (<5,700Kg) and want to stay there, a B3 Licence may be what you need. It's a lot easier than the B1 (Cat A plus, really). The B3 more or less gives you B1 privileges, but only on small aircraft. Others' opinions on that would be interesting.
B3 is not to be confused with B1.3!
Last edited by Capot; 8th Jul 2012 at 10:21.