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stefair
9th Apr 2006, 22:51
Hi ya,

I am facing a dilemma at the moment as follows: I am a EU citizen and planning on heading off to the US this summer to train for my FAA PPL at a flight school in Carlsbad, California. The only problem now is this flight school does not do visa processing as I have learned today! However friends of mine reside in Carlsbad and so I would not have to pay for neither accomodation nor transportation.

My question to you is do you see a chance for me to enter the US on merely a tourist visa and not tell immigration at the airport anything about my real intentions? Also do I have to go through the 'clearance' process with TSA and therefore have to go through the applicaton process for an M1 visa as well? And does one have to be on a student visa (M1) in order to get 'clearance' from TSA?

I know of pilots who have been to the US on a tourist visa and completed their flight training with no problems, however, this must have been prior to 9/11. As I understand it flight training in the US has gotten much more bureaucratic these days...

It would be great to hear any thoughts in this! Many thanks in advance!!! :ok:
stefair
11th Apr 2006, 12:30
Oh NO, please, not so many... :sad:
Not anyone here who has recently had to face the same problem or is in any other way knowledgeable about this matter?
jai6638
11th Apr 2006, 20:42
You will need to apply for TSA clearance from since you are not a US citizen:

https://www.flightschoolcandidates.gov/


They ask you for your visa details and hence, I dont think you will be able to start training/get your PPL without a valid visa ( such as a student visa,etc ) .... I got my clearance on a F-1 student visa.
B2N2
12th Apr 2006, 21:43
You can always risk it, but face it, it's illegal.
Illegal as in against the law.....as in getting an Immigration violation and potentially banned from the US for several years.
Banned as in not allowed in under any circumstance, not even with a visa.
Illegal as in potentially a big fine for you and for the school that trains foreigners without proper documentation.
All it takes is for somebody to mention that school XXX is training foreign students.
Foreign students need to enroll with a school that has visa approval.
The school will sent you an application form that you take with you to the US embassy.
The process is described ( amongst other places) here:

http://www.eaa-fly.com/2.0/en/MainTrainingVisa.html