Originally Posted by training wheels
I know a few former SFC instructors (Australian nationals with CASA licenses) who were able to convert their licenses to the CAAS equivalent. They are now flying with Silk Air.
I knew who are they. In fact, I knew who passed and signed their CAAS license for them.
Originally Posted by training wheels
So this suggests that it is possible to convert a CASA license to the CAAS but I guess there must be a stipulation on minimum hours before this is possible. Is this correct? And if so, then what are the minimums?
May I not answer this question? Let me share some issues.
I am sure everbody knows about the Australia's employment right typically in aviation industry. the Australian Government only allow the air-operator (in this case, Singapore Flying College), hires Australian or Aussie
PR and they strictly do not issue work visa to anybody (including Singaporeans) to work as Flight Instructor. Isn't it great that the Australian Government is doing a good job to protect their local pilot employment?!
Anyway, the Aussie flight instructors in SFC are given 100% priority to join SIA/Silkair after they finished their contract. There are a few reasons why SFC did this.
For these Aussie flight instructors doing CAAS license conversion is a piece of cake. They are required to take CAAS Air Law plus a few papers and that's about it. They trained silkair/SIA cadets and meeting with the in-house examiner all the time, hence, it is extremely difficult for them to fail in license conversion. Furthermore, the in-house examiner has the authority to assess since he is highly paid by SFC. See chart [
click].
For Singaporeans holding CASA license (or other foreign licenses) is a terrible nightmare to undergo license conversion. Any Singapore Citizen (and foreigner) is not allowed to convert their license unless a Singapore air-operator willing to hire him/her. On the other hand, Singapore air-operator only hire applicant holding CAAS license. This is a very good catch-22 example, whereby, how to expect an applicant to get hired without license converted?
I knew many Singaporeans holding foreign licenses with beautiful hours but it is tough for them to be employed by local air-operator. CAAS license conversion is a torturing, painful and expensive process (especially to Singaporeans holding foreign license). Singapore is the first and only country in the world that make it impossible for their own citizens to convert license. I suggest poor jobless Singaporean pilots should call "
Gov't hotlines" , afterall they are being paid to solve problem.
There were a handful of pilots slipped through the net and license was successfully converted without meeting the CAAS minimums. For your case, self-funded to get CAAS license converted is very difficult.