JAA Modular Course ( 43rd & Progress

[Ndege-5Y]

Anyone with experience of the JAA modular programm offered by both Progress Flight Academy and 43rd Air school? Do they finish this course in the months they say. Ie 5months on 43rd and 4 months in progress? Does the program run well? how is experince of this program in general? How many hrs for a student in this program per day? Is this program with many students? If you are a student in 43rd or Progress and know how this program is run? kindly share the experience. Will be very much appreciated.

[Propellerpilot]

JAA i.e. EASA actually needs you to aquire all your training on aircraft that is JAR registered, JAR 145 maintained and is on a JAR approved ATO facility. So even hour-buidling would be impossible, unless you have a South African PPL - so trainig and solo hour-building are two completly different things at present BUT I have even heard rumour, that even hourbuilding might be restricted by the above initial criteria though, as it already is the case for the non-modular course.

So the best and only thing you can really do, is contact your local JAR authority of choice and find out (until EASA becomes reality, every State still has slightly different rules...). I can only strongly recommend this to anyone who has any intentions doing anything JAR in a non-JAR state to get WRITTEN confirmation what will and what will not be accredited. Parallel to this you could enquire with 43 and Progress which authority has authorized them to do JAR training, which I doubt very much, that they can.

You can only shortcut, but not eliminate the practical training if you have acuired a full non-JAA licence (e.g. SACPL/IR, frozen ATPL) and present a certain amount of experience (e.g. at least 1000 hours in commercial aviation, over 500 hours Multi crew etcetc.) - it even goes to the point of being individually assessed on theory, practical knowledge and proficiancy by a JAR ATO to determine individual trainig requirements, which have in turn to be approved by the authority.

So what all of this boils down to, is that hourbuilding with a SACAA PPL might be a financial bonus, if future regulations still allow. You have to do the math - and South Africa is not cheap.

[ct2003]

Hour building in SA is no problem as long as you are on the modular JAA route. You "just" have to get your JAR PPL validated in SA so that you are allowed to fly ZS/ZU-reg a/c. Did it myself.

You may also obtain a PPL from SA as it is a full ICAO PPL and therefor convertible to a European licence without big hassle. Afaik, conversion of "higher" ratings/licences is much more complicated due to JAR requirements for such conversion.

[Propellerpilot]

Thank you ct2003 - hour building on a validation is of course correct, I forgot to mention that amongst all of the other stuff.

[Redmucky]

I also have been thinking of training in South Africa with Progress. Is it correct that I can obtain a JAA CPL ME IR by doing the following:


1. Take SA PPL with Night Rating, MEP Rating and build my hours to 130
2. Return to the UK and do the ATPL ground school, IR flight training and CPL flight training

Is this possible?

[Propellerpilot]

@redmucky - yes, that should be in order since you are not training, just hour-building. But you would only go to Progress to train and obtain the SAPPL - this has nothing to do with JAA - once you have the PPL you can hire any appropriate ZS aircraft to fly the hours.

[ct2003]

Rather double-check the conversion of the night rating and MEP from ICAO to JAR. It might be better, due to JAR, to obtain such in a JAR country/JAA accredited FTO. But as I said, I am not sure about that...

[Propellerpilot]

You can't obtain class or type ratings on a non JAR register for your JAR licence - this means you have to do a full conversion course. I only know, in case you want to validate a foreign MEP class rating you need at least 70 hours on ME in order to qualify for the skills test with the examiner. So flying MEP in SA will not be worth it, rather gather all the hours SEP and then do a 10 hour conversion with a JAR ATO on ME.

Looks like Ndege-5Y has disappeared from his post...

[ct2003]

affirm!

Go for the SEp hours, everything is complicated to arrange/validate/convert in both "worlds".

Afaik, from SEp to MEP in JAR countries is only 5 h. Plus 5 h if MEP IR.