Hello all,
Firstly I'm sorry if I've posted this in the wrong section, I'm new to this site.
Okay, so all my life I've wanted to be an airline pilot. I have this burning desire to fly and I can't imagine doing anything else as a career, but here comes... I have a moderate green (deutanope) colour deficiency, and at age 11, my dreams of flying died in the optician's examining room.
Fast forward 9 years and here I am, at university studying for a degree that I'm not really interested in, but after reading an article about colour vision, I decided to try and give it another go, and I'm about 3/4 of the way through the EASA PPL syllabus. I have a CAA class 2 medical with the daytime only restriction on it, which is fine for now.
After endless hours of searching online, I found out that CASA allow colour vision defective pilots to fly commercially, a feat now outlawed by EASA (which is a steaming pile of politically motivated excrement, but whatever). So essentially, my dream of being an airline pilot has been reignited. My plan is to finish my PPL, graduate from university, then apply for a student visa to train for an Australian CPL with a multi engine and command instrument rating and get a working visa and look for work, with a view to going into airline employment.
Australia, unlike EASA allow more practical aviation lights tests such as the tower gun light test, which I am thinking I would be able to pass, and this would permit me to fly internationally too. If I don't pass, I can still be a first officer on domestic Australian flights only, which to be honest is still awesome.
My main queries do not surround converting my EASA PPL(A) into a CASA PPL(A), because I've heard that that is a relatively straight forward procedure, however I am wondering if it is possible to gain a CASA class 1 medical in the UK, I know I will pass it (with the restrictions on it until I can have a go at further testing which is done specifically in Australia), but I would like to make sure that everything else concerning class 1 is okay for me, so that when I do come to Australia to train, there will be no nasty surprises after heavy investment in moving and gaining visas. Do you think this will be a waste of time to do this, or is it a good move?
I am generally worried about the whole thing (visa applications, not being able to find a job et cetera), not to mention the colour vision thing, but I am determined to do this!
Finally, can anyone recommend any good professional flight training schools which offer commercial pilot's licenses, multi engine instrument ratings and multi crew cooperation classes... oh also one which can sponsor international students and one I won't have to sell my kidney to be able to pay for.
Thank you for reading this, any help would be greatly appreciated
Liam Clarke