RVR800, you said:
JAA-FCL
1. More Cost
2. More Time
3. More Difficult
4. Less chance of a job
1. Not true for the Inegrated vs CAP509 courses. BAe at Prestwick were asking £55,000 for a CAP509 in 1991 and in 2001 they were still asking £55,000 for an Integrated course albeit now in Jerez. The medical has gone up out of all proportion to inflation but the rest is kind of in line. As part of the JAR flight training syllabus aims was that of replacing expensive airtime with cheaper Sim time where appropriate. This in fact occurred with the inclusion of considerable FNPT2 time counting towards license issue.
2. Again a CAP509 course was quoted as a year and often a tad more - like the Integrated. The Modular route can see you go from nothing to CPL issues in well under 6 months. Under the old Self Improver scheme the building of 700hrs would take 6 months alone.
3. The flying tests on the Integrated course are now far more fluid than the somewhat uneven hurdles one faced under CAP509 flight testing. Certainly the groundschools now compared to pre-JAR have all taken advantage in multimedia technology. I shudder when I compared my 1999 PPSC notes with the CD ROM offerings of the major groundschools. Chalk and cheese. The exam pass rates are now at historic levels and during their introduction the pass marks were lowered and tricky questions were discarded on favourable terms.
4. Barring the economic climate for airlines over which JAR has no control one could argue there are now more chances of a job. You can now fly German aircraft, French, Spanish, Italian etc. etc. Assuming of course you have all the necessary linguistic skills there are now many more potential jobs to apply for.
There is a slight tendency for people to look back on the pre-JAR training system with rose colored specs. They believe training was cheaper and the exams easier.
They weren't.
WWW