FAA to JAA

[kezo]

Hello, I'm new here,

I'm about to head over to Europe for converting my FAA licenses to JAA,
Got around 105h pic, 170h total in helicopter *all R22.
Want to convert my IR and CPL, at the same time take ATPL-H theory.

Is there any hour requirements I've missed, and what would be the best and cheapest way to convert them?

[scooby79]

It is going to cost an absolute fortune. Don't know much about helicopter licenses but I think you need to do the IR in a twin which means turbine and loads of cash. You are in for a shock if this is the first research you have done. Try searching on here or the CAA website or call a school. CAA is the best place.

Found this from a post in 2006 on pprune so probably more expensive now for the IR:

Specialist Aviation Services - IR from scratch is about £40K (+VAT) inc ME type rating, but for FAA->JAA conversion including (for example) AS355 type conversion someone here was quoted £15K +VAT.

[INNflight]

It is going to cost an absolute fortune. Don't know much about helicopter licenses but I think you need to do the IR in a twin which means turbine and loads of cash

That's absolutely not true. I don't know about helo licenses either, but I do the conversion route for airplane tickets and it pays off easily.

Paid 25k pounds in the US for a CPL(A) ME IR, the same would cost me 50-60k pounds in Europe.

Go figure.... lotsa cash to spend on a conversion.

[kezo]

im aware of this, its not cheap at all.
But when it comes to hour's, do i lack anything there?
or am i good to go

[Transsonic2000]

Hi,

regarding the hour requirements for converting an FAA to JAA IR, if you have anything less than 100 hr (PIC) IFR than you basically have to "re-do" your IR, this applies to both fixed-wing and rotor-wing aircraft.

I'm currently in the process of converting FAA to JAA myself (however, fixed-wing) and to my knowledge in Europe IFR is/must be in a multi-engine aircraft - at least regarding commercial ops.

However, a buddy of mine did the conversion a few years ago (he is a heli pilot) and he also mentioned something about flying a twin-engine chopper (something like a Jetranger or so) in order to get his IR converted. After all he refrained from converting his IR because he was short of IFR PIC time and it would have been far to expensive. And as a chopper pilot you (usually) don't need to be instrument reated anyway.

Regarding the conversion of your CPL, I suggest to check out the following link:
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/175/Section%201%20Subpart%20D%20-%20Amdt%203%20(JAR-FCL%202).pdf (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/175/Section%201%20Subpart%20D%20-%20Amdt%203%20%28JAR-FCL%202%29.pdf)

I'd say it's probably the best, prior to start the conversion, to get in touch with the respective Aviation Authority and see what they say. In the UK this would be Civil Aviation Authority Home Page (http://www.caa.co.uk/)

Just as a side note, in order to get a commercial flying job in Europe you should/must have EU citizenship, otherwise it's pretty much impossible the get a job.

Greets and good luck :)

[kezo]

Thanks for the links,
I'm from Norway, so that should be ok.
A lot of schools in Scandinavia only got IR training in MR helicopters, and you need at least 8hours of flight. No wonder why its expensive.

Ill start working on CPL conversion, thanks again.