EASA licences taught by FAA CFIs in US.

[sapperkenno]

With the likes of OAA, Lufthansa and now CTC operating in the Phoenix area, training students for EASA licences... How does this work when US CFIs are providing the training, presumably without EASA licences themselves, or EASA CPL knowledge?
I'm interested to know what dispensation they are given, and how I could formulate a valid argument towards teaching the PPL myself, in the UK, as a PPL with FI rating, but no EASA CPL knowledge. I am also an FAA CFI/II AGI/IGI, hence my interest in the above.

[ahwalk01]

They have to be dual rated, or I'd do similar in the UK too.

Mainly they have EU instructors head over, e.g. Naples air center.

Alex.

[BillieBob]

Depends what you mean by 'dual rated' as no 'rating' is involved.

FCL.900 Instructor Certificates

(c) Instruction outside the territory of the Member States:

(1) Notwithstanding paragraph (a), in the case of flight instruction provided in an ATO located outside the territory of the Member States, the competent authority may issue an instructor certificate to an applicant holding a pilot licence issued by a third country in accordance with Annex 1 to the Chicago Convention, provided that the applicant:
(i) holds at least an equivalent licence, rating, or certificate to the one for which they are authorised to instruct and in any case at least a CPL;
(ii) complies with the requirements established in this Subpart for the issue of the relevant instructor certificate;
(iii) demonstrates to the competent authority an adequate level of knowledge of European aviation safety rules to be able to exercise instructional privileges in accordance with this Part.

(2) The certificate shall be limited to providing flight instruction:
(i) in ATOs located outside the territory of the Member States;
(ii) to student pilots who have sufficient knowledge of the language in which flight instruction is given.


In other words, you will have to complete an approved FI course and pass an Assessment of Competence with an FIE, which will include a demonstration of familiarity with the EASA rules. Depending on the competent authority providing oversight, abridgement of the FI course may be possible (e.g. the UK Alt AMC reduces the training requirement to 30 hrs ground and 15 hours flight).

[Whopity]

and how I could formulate a valid argument towards teaching the PPL myself, in the UK, as a PPL with FI rating, but no EASA CPL knowledge.There is no valid argument, to teach inside a Member State you have to comply with the EASA requirement which for PPL instruction is to have EASA CPL level knowledge. Meanwhile; you can teach for the LAPL or Microlight licences.

[sapperkenno]

Exactly, it's not "dual-rated" at all, merely FAA CFIs (the majority I know of are US citizens) who have been approved by EASA, who teach towards EASA licences in the US. Thanks for the reference BillieBob.
How can EASA accept training given by foreigners, yet within the member states everyone has to jump through different hoops. Surely, if an FAA CFI is good enough for the job overseas, then why not allow a similar competence test to allow instruction within member states?
I already know about the 30hrs ground, 15hrs flight, as I went through a similar process to add an FI rating to my PPL, then passed the FI skills test and now possess the FI rating, and teach NPPL/LAPL. I am also aware that the CPL knowledge is an ICAO requirement, but as I already have that with my FAA stuff, I can't see why this can't be credited, to allow instruction towards PPL. Makes no sense.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

It is a known fact that the laws of aerodynamics and physics change from country to country.

Therefore a pilot who is not trained to EASA standards will be sub standard and dangerous when flying in air within EASA authority.

I thought all pilots knew that?

[Hawker 800]

I believe it is similar in the BizJet world. There is an imminent move to make all non EASA registered aircraft based in Europe crewed by EASA licenced pilots, if I'm not mistaken.

Not 100% sure of dates as I fly only G and M registered aircraft.

[ifitaintboeing]

I am also aware that the CPL knowledge is an ICAO requirement, but as I already have that with my FAA stuff, I can't see why this can't be credited, to allow instruction towards PPL. Makes no sense.

If an EASA CPL holder with EASA FI certificate wanted to teach in FAA-land, would they be credited with FAA CPL theoretical knowledge? No.

Therefore a pilot who is not trained to EASA standards will be sub standard and dangerous when flying in air within EASA authority.

Under EASA you can add a FI certificate to a EASA PPL. Someone instructing under EASA wishing to obtain a FAA CFI would have to convert their EASA PPL with FI certificate by completing the process to obtain both a FAA CPL and FAA IR to then be able to add a FAA CFI certificate for airplanes; both the FAA CPL and IR requirements are over and above ICAO Annex I requirements. That's without mentioning the additional TSA and visa requirements...

ifitaint...

[Whopity]

How can EASA accept training given by foreigners, yet within the member states everyone has to jump through different hoops.The hoops within EU States is what EASA intended however; they were caught over a barrel with one or two large German companies conducting training overseas and were obliged to continue the concession granted under JARs for training outside an EU State. If you want to teach PPL, it will be far less effort to meet the requirements than to try and move the unmoveable.

[oggers]

Whereas aviation authorities around the world originally recognised the need to set up ICAO, to the EU it is just a breach in the hull which they are busy plugging with EASA red tape. What 'makes sense' is secondary.

[sapperkenno]

Ifitaint... I see what you're saying, but it would be far easier moving the EASA to FAA way (barring right to work and immigration arguments). You wouldn't need to line the pockets of one of the few ATOs that you MUST use to do your compulsory study, in your spare time, then take 3 weeks off work to travel half way across the country to attend mandatory groundschool, then travel somewhere else to sit the exams (at £80 or so a time?) on the dates they stipulate...
The other "BizJet" rules are daft too. I know a few people with only FAA qual's, flying N/M-reg, in EASA airspace. I'm sure these people would be just as happy to fly Euro-reg airframes, and the owners happy to operate European registered fleets if it was as easy as operating/licensing under the FAA system.

[S-Works]

Just do the damn exams like the rest of us....... If people spent as much energy actually getting on with it and less bitching about it on the internet it they would realise how much of a no brainer it really is. Even more so if just doing the CPL exams.

:ugh:

[sapperkenno]

I was hoping more along the lines of standing up to the red-tape, gold-plating crap... Not just bending over with my pants down like you're suggesting.

[ifitaintboeing]

I see what you're saying, but it would be far easier moving the EASA to FAA way (barring right to work and immigration arguments). You wouldn't need to line the pockets of one of the few ATOs that you MUST use to do your compulsory study, in your spare time, then take 3 weeks off work to travel half way across the country to attend mandatory groundschool

You only have to complete theoretical knowledge training as required then pass the theoretical knowlege exams - that's the same requirement were you converting EASA > FAA (14 CFR 61.123(c)). See CAP 804, Section 4, Part Q, Subpart 2, page 3, para 3.2.1:


ICAO CPL (A) holder to Part-FCL CPL(A)

Undertake Part-FCL CPL (A) or ATPL (A) theoretical knowledge instruction as determined by the Head of Training of an approved training provider and pass all Part-FCL theoretical knowledge examinations at CPL level.

...


ifitaint..

[S-Works]

sapperkenno

Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: UK
Posts: 341
I was hoping more along the lines of standing up to the red-tape, gold-plating crap... Not just bending over with my pants down like you're suggesting.


No you are not, you looking to find a curve on a straight road, just like many before you and many that will come after you.

The rules are clear, the rest of us followed them without problem, if you want to be treated on a level footing with your peers then it needs to be a level footing not one achieved by trying to find a shortcut.

As Head of Training I would not employ you over someone that has jumped through the hoops. Standardisation is the hot potato of EASA and whether we agree with it or not it's the way it is now. If you can't follow the rules to get the qualifications then how would I know you would follow the rules for training?

The exams are not difficult and if you have think your FAA qualifications are equivalent then it's just a case of submitting yourself for the exams. You don't need to do any mandatory study or classroom. Simples!

[sapperkenno]

The exams are not difficult and if you have think your FAA qualifications are equivalent then it's just a case of submitting yourself for the exams. You don't need to do any mandatory study or classroom. Simples!

I asked CATS and they said that option is only available to people with 500 hours multi-crew?

It's not a shortcut, just trying to do away with something that is totally unnecessary. That's not just my view, but that of many of my peers. The only people who disagree are those who have done all this nonsense themselves, and are trying to justify what a huge waste of time/money it was, and make everyone else suffer cuz "that's just how it is". There is no safety case for any of this, and if a licence/certificate is already ICAO standard, then why does EASA have to reinvent the wheel and ask for more than that required?

It's all a big money making exercise... and I can still hop in an N-reg tomorrow and earn money in the UK, and fly airways with everyone else, and be no less safe. Maybe not for much longer, but all the talk of bilateral agreements makes a lot more sense than the current system. I would happily take any flight tests tomorrow, as I have nothing to hide and am sure I'm at the required operational standard.

[Whopity]

I asked CATS and they said that option is only available to people with 500 hours multi-crew?How can a CPL holder have MP time?

Read the ref given by ifitaintThese arrangements provide a route to a UK CAA-issued Part-FCL CPL (A) or (H) , IR(A)
or (H) and/or Flight Instructor Certificates (A) or (H), qualification for the holders of a
current and valid ICAO CPL (A) or (H), IR(A) or (H) and/or ICAO Flight Instructor Rating
(A) or (H), as applicable, issued in accordance with ICAO Annex 1.

[S-Works]

CATS misinformed you. Ifitaintboing arleady posted the correct information. It's up to the Head of Training to decide the exact requirements but someone with your claimed vast experience would be allowed to direct their own study and directly take the exams.

Also don't confuse doing the ATPL exams with the CPL exams which are a massively reduced subset. I had a student do a an FAA to EASA CPL conversion including the flying in less than a month this summer.

Way too much is made of the requirements generally told by those looking for a shortcut...... :ok:

[Reverserbucket]

bose-x said:

"Standardisation is the hot potato of EASA and whether we agree with it or not it's the way it is now. If you can't follow the rules to get the qualifications then how would I know you would follow the rules for training?"

If standardisation is such a hot potato, how standardised are these 'FI's' teaching EASA CPL courses outside of member states? I think that regardless of sappakenno's intention, he raises an interesting point, namely that EASA must recognise an FAA Commercial Pilot Certificate as equivalent to an EASA CPL, as FCL.900 states as at least an equivalent licence, rating, or certificate to the one for which they are authorised to instruct and in any case at least an ICAO CPL is a prerequisite to instructing outside the member states. How much emphasis is placed on the non-member state candidates ability to demonstrate to the competent authority an adequate level of knowledge of European aviation safety rules to be able to exercise instructional privileges in accordance with this Part though?

Of course the CPL and IR Skill Tests are conducted by EASA approved FE's (not necessarily independent of the ATO for an integrated course candidate), but I find it interesting that professional pilots who are ultimately licenced to fly members of the public in the EU are instructed outside of the EU by non-EU licenced personnel. And this is not intended as any criticism of non-member state instructors, only that although indeed the physics of flying don't change depending on which side of the ocean you are, the style and structure of training can be quite different, irrespective of whether you are following an EASA approved syllabus.

[sapperkenno]

I'll chase it up with CATS then. I don't profess to having vast experience, merely that I'm not a sub-1000 hour wonder, and I can and already am doing the job flying commercially in the UK. With my father holding US citizenship, and having sponsored me to immigrate, I can't see myself staying in the UK more than another 2-3 years... So that raises the question whether the expense of converting everything "properly" would be worth it for the little return I might get back.
Thanks for all the helpful advice, and references. Apologies for rubbing anyone up the wrong way, but it is frustrating and I might yet find I do all these exams only for this BASA to come in and remove a large brunt of the groundschool/exams requirement. Will certainly see what's involved in doing only the CPL exams, as opposed to ATPL. Presumably with the CBIR, coming from FAA would mean I wouldn't need the IR exams? So there may be some light at the end of the tunnel? Would that be correct, in that it would only be CPL exams?
Reversebucket gets it. Standardisation on EASAs terms it seems.
Cheers,
L

[sapperkenno]

To be exempt G/S you need to hold an ATP with over 1500 hours and a type rating.

^^Was what I was told by their man via email a couple of months ago.

[ahwalk01]

I agree on the dual rating point - there is no equivalent to an FAA CFI, I'd have to start all over again on the EASA FI ratings.

As I am to understand it, if the people teaching EASA in the US can do so unlicensed, yet to teach FAA in the EU I have to be also EASA licensed or do it for free, I am doubly disadvantaged.

Roll on April 2016. At least the US Military in Europe is exempt...

[Hawker 800]

Roll on April 2016.

Don't hold your hopes up. I don't think that you will get much dispensation at all from EASA at all without serious multi crew jet time. I would get the books out and start working on EASA theory.

[Reverserbucket]

ahwalk01 - the US CFI's teaching at EASA ATO's are not unlicensed; they hold at least an FAA Commercial Pilot Certificate with Instrument and CFI(A) qualifications in addition to prerequisite experience. On the basis of this they undertake an evaluation, full or abridged FI(A) course based on an assessment of their ability delivered by an approved EASA Flight Instructor Course instructor (FIC) and an evaluation by an authorised EASA Flight Instructor Examiner. Successful candidates are provided with an approval certificate by the ATO's state safety enforcement body (NAA) which enables the holder to teach parts of the relevant EASA FCL syllabus at that ATO and only outside of member states.


What they don't hold is an EASA licence or EASA Instructor Rating (hence the approval document to enable them to teach EASA students). Also worth noting that an EASA licence holder with no FI privileges is ineligible for the 'short' bridging course described - you would have to complete the full initial FI(A) course. As has been said, this is a means of staffing EASA approved training organisations who operate partly outside of the EU member states, and the facility to enable this was negotiated by the large ATO's for the reasons stated earlier.


Any anticipated bilateral agreements concerning FCL at this level should be discounted - at least for 2016 and the near future.

[ahwalk01]

Thanks for the details guys.

Will confine myself to USAF work for the time being.

[davie7ee]

I instructed the CAA and FAA courses in the USA (dual citizen). The loophole that allowed FAA to teach there is closing up. Just as the "students" that are actually working there are starting to close up by the FAA. There are many areas of part 61 which the EASA students do not demonstrate and thus should not be signed off for solo! But to teach the EASA ppl/cpl I had to do a course with the head of training in my ATO. I was then given a caa reference number which allowed me to teach various courses at the school. So in short you are standardised by the school.


FAA to EASA conversion (sorry it is a little long):

I have just converted my ATPL from FAA to EASA (FI info lower down the page), what I did was the following:
I hold an FAA ATP, which is in the UK described as a professional licence. I was therefore exempt from the ground school requirement. I did however have to take the 14 exams. Most of the exams easy, some are just of no use in practical terms whatsoever and are hard to study for because of that. If you have an ATP you just saved a few quid as you don't need a brush up course!

There are exemptions for the RT test, you would need to look at cap 804. But from memory if you have X international flight hours you don't need to do the RT test.

After you have done the exams you need a medical and some form of skills test. I did my skills test in a sim, it was an aircraft which I have 3000 or so hours in and was really very straight forward. No oral examination just the flight. But I could of taken the skills test in a different sim which I had no previous experience after a full training course.

Now I am doing the Flight instructor conversion. Which again there is a reduction for!

In the UK you have to do a pre course assessment to enable you to start the FI course. The CAA state that everyone has to do the 30hr ground and 15hr flight course BUT the ATO which you are doing it at can request a reduction in these times if you hold a valid ICAO flight instructors rating which you do as the FAA is ICAO.

Feel free to email me if you like if you want more info as I have just been through this and It wasn't easy

[sapperkenno]

Thanks for the detailed reply davie7ee. I'm trying to study for the EASA CPL exams at the minute, as I have FAA commercial, so am exempt the groundschool/classroom bit and can just self study and take the exams - which I didn't know I could do until recently. Only small problem being I'll have to do them all again plus a little bit more to get ATPL theory should I need that, which I probably will in future to have any real hope of a job in the EU - although on paper a EASA CPL/MEIR should suffice, and I'll just be stuck right seat for the rest of my life, never getting a command.

I did the FI stuff, coming from FAA CFI/II AGI IGI, and have been working full-time as an FI for well over a year now... I was able to get that using the route you mentioned, logging something like 4.5 hours flying (including test) and a bit of ground. I should mention I'd also held the EASA CRI rating for over a year prior, so I think some of that helped, as it wasn't based purely on my FAA credentials. So all the talk of this 15 hours flight and 30 ground is nonsense, because as you correctly point out, the ATO can decide on a reduction which the CAA then have to accept - which is great info for any other foreign FIs trying to get into the EASA system. Fortunately the thing that works for me is the allowance of paid flight instruction on a PPL, and that I can teach students towards LAPL/NPPL without having EASA CPL theoretical knowledge passes. So there are some positives, and you can make things work if you do your research and have a good ATO that will back you up and not force you into flying for 15 hours!

Just gets my back up that we have such a stupid system where ICAO qualified people have to jump through so many hoops and get around all the beurocracy and protectionism to do the things that they are more than capable of doing, if only they had different writing stamped on their licences/certificates and certain registrations on their aircraft.

[S-Works]

Only small problem being I'll have to do them all again plus a little bit more to get ATPL theory should I need that, which I probably will in future to have any real hope of a job in the EU - although on paper a EASA CPL/MEIR should suffice, and I'll just be stuck right seat for the rest of my life, never getting a command.


No you won't. You are not eligible for any job in a multi crew environment without an ATPL exam pass.