Licence Vs Hours

[clevenger]

Yet another person looking for advice here. Which is better having some hours or all the correct ratings?

Am about to embark on own self (and bank) funded training. Options are the following

1. Sit career pilot program of U.S. school, go from ab intio to
FAA private/commercial/instrument/flight instructor/flight instrument instructor ratings and external load/mountain flying certificates with total 150hrs. Complete above in 9 months at cost of £32k Stg which leaves 14months of my two year J-1 US visa to find a job as an instructor and try and bulid some hours. Advantage is getting hours BIG DISADVANTAGE is I then need to enroll in a JAA ATPL H ground school to get the JAA licence (I'm Irish)

2.Sit Integrated JAA/FAA CPLH course in the US. Obtain, in 14 months at cost of £49k Stg FAA private JAA commercial FAA Comercial transition FAA Flight Instructor with total 200hrs which then leaves just 9 months to try get job instructing before US kicks me out. Advantage is gets the JAA licence out of the way but disadvantage is not leave much time to try build hrs in US and 49K is just the training cost. One's got to live on top of that so the whole things bloody expensive.


Your thoughts gentlemen and ladies would be most welcome.

[whirlycopter]

Do option 1 - but do the Jaa atplh stuff by distance learning at the same time. I am in a similar position and it is quite hard to learn 2 sets of slightly different rules of the air but I'm sure you'll get your head round it!

That said once you start instructing you won't be studying the fars anymore and, depending on the school, you will certainly have enought time on your hands to complete the ground school bits in well under 14 months.

The distance learning course seems to be about £3k .

Good luck!

[Jonasraf]

Do option 1 and the distance ATPL (H) like whirlycopter said earlier. But to save time in the J-1 visa you can go on a 1-3 month holiday to USA and do the PPL part, then go back home and apply for J-1 visa, then when you get back to USA with your J-1 visa you can start your CPL training.

Hope that this is not to confusing.:confused:

And I think its more important to have more hours rather than lots of ratings. Because when we have more hours we will not be anymore low time pilots :D (at least not as low)

[clevenger]

Is it normal for your employer to pay for your IR ,or in this day and age do you have to fund it yourself before applying for jobs?

They're expensive little things!

[Rotorbody]

If you haven't done so already, search this board for the topic 'Would you do a Helicopter rating again' (or something like that)

Some interesting views there!!!! :eek: