ATC
Firstly I have a friend who has just achieved his EASA ATPs after flying foreign reg on Midsize Biz Jets. He was replaced off his current position for 6 months on full pay with a very understanding Boss went to Oxford full time. HE failed and it dragged for 1.5 years before he completed and past the 14 exams
For myself I would be no good at distant learning I need the structure of a full time course but if I took six months away I would come back to no aeroplanes to fly
So really we were promised at the start of all this a BASA for PPL and Commercial Licenses and I had hoped for a much more realistic conversion like why not ? Air Law ?
So yes thats an option but then I am an older pilot and any pilot approaching say 60 is going to think is it worth the hassle and huge expense just to carry on doing what you are already doing quite happily and safely. I haven't killed anyone yet in 30 years of flying a lot in hard IFR and in Piston twins and 15 years in jets
So there is the motivation factor! If I was 30 or even 40 a no brainer
Lastly the principal That this was instigated by two small pressure groups mainly french with a lot of power and its a sour grapes move to eliminate N reg in the EU . Achieving and maintaining two sets of licenses when the one has no validity on the aircraft you fly
Madness
If something makes sense and its fair then it ticks a box with me. This is non sense and not fair and doesn't tick the box to a section of European flying which is well established and where some pilots have built legitimate careers for longer than the EU has been in existence.
Why because most private jets were N or other flags and if thats what you wanted to fly thats what you had to do.
Its not our fault that so many N reg were allowed to develop in Europe so why should we suffer for failings in the authorities which allowed them to develop so extensively if they didn't want them.
Has EASA offered any Grandfathering rights for established pilots NO have EASA tried to accommodate older pilots by offering annual validations until they run their careers out ? NO
So yes the exams are one way to go but will need to think whether its worth it
And yes if a wealthy guy wanted to challenge this shambles in the EU courts and took along a battalion of lawyers The commission would have to act or shut down this ridiculous legislation
Thinking about how much I write on pprune maybe if I stuck pprune on top of the exam headings I would sail through the distant learning
Pace