CPL exams & IR exams and associated ground school
Dear all,
I am PPL with IMC and c.200 hours. I would like to progress my experience & training so looking at both CPL & IR as next step. I should say at this point, I am not interested in becoming an airline pilot. I fly for fun and as a hobby - the reason for doing these courses is therefore as I said - experience and training, not to get an ATPL or a job.
A key consideration for me then is the ground studies and specifically the time taken to complete them. I have a full time job (Monday to Friday) and only get 4-5 working weeks of holiday so any attendance during the week erodes holiday time with the family which is undesirable.
So I have two questions if I may...
1. Firstly, the ATPL exams consist of 14 exams. However, if I only wanted a CPL it would only be 9 exams and if I only wanted an IR it would be 7. How many exams would I need to take to take to be able to do a CPL and IR seperately? Is there a beneficial order in which to do them? Ie CPL first or IR first? I expect many people are going to say 'just do all 14 ATPLs' which is fine. But keen to hear if doing fewer exams is possible given my ultimate goals?
2. Secondly, where do you recommend I do the ground studies for these courses? I know Bristol (for example) only does an ATPL course. Any suggestions/recommendations?
Many thanks in advance