JAA conversion school

[FlyingDumbells]

Hi,

Lookinjg for a good school for converting ICAO CPL MECIR to FROZEN ATPL with CPL/ MECIR JAA,

I spoke with someone from oxford aviation and they said they only offer the ground course for ATPL for it.

Leaving me to find another school for the flying side. Any recommendations for the flying part? My goal is to work in Ireland or UK, perhaps Ryan Air as I am Irish.

Perhaps forget about Oxford all together if someone can recommend a good place offering the whole conversion.

O and how much did it cost you? If anyone with experience in this has done it. I've just finished all my training in Oz.

Kudos.

[zondaracer]

I did a conversion, I used Bristol Groundschool for the theory (all first time passes, thanks Bristol!).

For the flying side... Check your PMs

[cefey]

OFT/Cabair for ground, very happy with instructors, would highly recommend them.
As for flying, they seems quite expensive. There is some schools in California that is decent priced. Or rather spain (again - cheaper the UK).

[sahni]

@zondaracer

Could you please give us an idea about time/cost involved for your conversion? I am in a similar situation as FlyingDumbells.

Cheers

[Jerry Lee]

OAA doesn't do conversions corse anymore - they can be used for the theory side though.

There is Egnatia Aviation in Greece, but it seems you'd rather to stay in the UK or Ireland, so I would suggest you to give a look at Bristol Flying Centre.

[FlyingDumbells]

Hi thanks for the replies so far.

I also need to know about the instrument rating part of the conversion. Need my instrument rating be current in order to do the minimum 15 hours before testing?

I have a good 8 months on mine left but depending on when I start and how long it takes to do the ATPLs will determine when i can begin my flying for the conversion.

It would be just another burn if I had to do a renewal again in Oz for this purpose.

[wellwisher]

Even I'm looking forward for ICAO -> JAA conversion and heard that many flight schools provide the conversion on east coast, USA for a decent low price compared to UK. Hey cefey, Which school in Spain do you suggest? It might be another good option too.

[zondaracer]

Sahni, sorry I forgot to reply, but to answer your question, time frame was about 6 months to do the ATPL exams, and 6 weeks to do the flying part plus MCC. The hard part was getting a school to take me, because many of them said that they had a 3 month waiting list or something similar. It wasn´t as if I could just stroll in and start lessons that day like I am used to in the US. The CPL conversion part took me 12 days in the UK (this is during the summer, in the winter it would take much more due to weather), and they said that the IR conversion was going to take 4 weeks minimum. I found a school in Spain that did the IR conversion in two weeks.

Wellwisher,

I would not recommend doing the CPL conversion in the US, but this is just my personal recommendation. First of all, you have to go through the process of getting a Visa (think time and money), then additional cost of airfare. Additionally, there are (were) 4 JAA schools in Florida. OFT currently does not have their UK certification (last I heard). EASA/Ormond Beach... well, you can do a search on here about them. NAC, same thing, probably not as bad as EASA/Ormond Beach, but I have two friends who did a conversion at NAC thinking that they would finish quickly because of the nice Florida weather. It took them 4 weeks due to the school just being too busy and not that well run. This cost them a lot more money in hotels as well, and they definitely didn´t think that they would be there for a whole month.

Some other hidden costs with doing your JAA training in the US is ground instruction. I realized that in the US, it is standard to charge for ground instruction, aka time before and after the lesson that the instructor spends briefing. In the UK, I have never paid for briefing time on the ground, just time in the air.

So, just my opinion.

[wellwisher]

Zondaracer,
I talked with Gulf Coast Training Solutions Based in Ft. Pierce in Florida. He sounded pretty composed while giving out information. 88 Pounds for each subject. :ooh: Hope that's the price everywhere. The only thing which didn't make sense was that they cannot give u an I-20 for training. They do it thru' a local college and charge 4000$ for a week's prep's school :mad: and if i get a visitor visa I still cannot sit for the prep classes. I might think again about it or just do everything in Spain. Even he said people go to Spain for flying purpose. There's gotta be some other way.

[zondaracer]

It is 88GBP if you take the exams outside of the UK but at a UK International testing center
CAA International Ltd (http://www.caainternational.com/site/cms/contentCategoryView.asp?category=305)

It is 68GBP if you take your exams within the UK.

I recommend you read these threads, and do a search for more because this subject is discussed a lot

http://www.pprune.org/professional-pilot-training-includes-ground-studies/470081-theory-exams-one-state-cpl-flight-training-another-under-easa.html

http://www.pprune.org/professional-pilot-training-includes-ground-studies/469376-conversion-less-than-5-figures.html

Besides Spain, I´ve also heard people talk about Greece, Poland, and Iceland, but I have not done any training there so I can´t comment.

[SAS-A321]

Try have a look for Icelandic Flight Academy. I doubt you will find better place, where price and quality is that good. The scenery was amazing. High quality instructors (757 pilots) and the examiner was one of the best and most relaxed I have ever met.
It only took me 14 days to convert MEIR in January, with weather delays. I bet all conversion (without SEL) can be done in a month, if you work hard and the weather is not too tricky. I regret not doing my CPL/ME conversion there, which took me a month due to ****ty school, planes and weather.

[XMurmeli]

I can recommend Icelandic Flight Academy. Good school, excellent instructors, sick Icelandic weather, decent planes and brand spanking new FNPT sim.

I did my JAA ME/IR conversion course in three weeks, so its quick!