I'm going to be going over to the US of A in a couple of months or so, and thought that I'd enjoy a bit of flying while I'm out there. Having chatted to a couple of people, it seems like I have a couple of options - either something based on my JAR PPL(A), which doesn't seem to require much more than form-filling, or an unrestricted FAA PPL(A) which requires an exam and flight test.
I'm thinking about the latter option - neither the exam or the test sound that bad, and the licence might be useful in the future. However, I've been looking at the requirements for licence issue on the FAA website. There's no problem with solo time, but I think I miss out on two of the dual requirements:
A. Dual: 20 hours of flight training with an instructor on the Private Pilot areas of operation that includes:
1. 3 hours of cross-country flight training in a single engine airplane;
2. 3 hours of night flight training in a single engine airplane, that includes at least-
a. 1 cross-country flight of over 100 nm. total distance; and
b. 10 takeoffs and 10 landings with each involving a flight in the traffic pattern.
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Now, an FAA cross-country is 50nm destination to destination, right? So I've never logged anything that counts as dual cross-country. Never done any night flying either.
Have I got the requirements right? At the moment it seems to me that I can get checked out and fly with a temporary licence, but I'd need 6 hours dual to fill in the blanks in my logbook + skills test to get a full licence? Hmmm...