CPL or ATPL
 

Hello All

Some help please. Im a 300 hour PPL, 44 years old, currently hold a mangement position in business planning on retiring early and want to instruct.. Given my age should I be looking at doing the ATPL ground school or CPL!! Not many places doing the CPL now but Im particularly impressed with the Bristol ground school package. Any help appreciated here.

Simon.

If this is to be a career change for you (and your age would suggest that it is a career you could pursue for a number of years), then I would go down the ATPL route.

If you do the CPL exams, get your CPL and FI rating and then subsequently decide that you need or want to get an Instrument Rating to extend your instructor potential you would need to do the IR exams. Two of my colleagues did the CPL exams only and regret it now as they both would like to to an IR but couldn't face the studying again.

Remember though that there is a time limit of 3 years from the end of the month of your last exam to have CPL and IR issued. The time limit does not apply to the FI rating.

Ref your other post on the Professional forum... Bristol Ground School is up there with the best of them.

Hope this helps.

Why do 600 hours of study when you only need 200? The Exams are only valid for 3 years so unless you have designs on flying airliners there is no point doing ATPL exams. You can add an IR at any tme by doing the IR exams if you need them.

Agreed!
If undertaking two sets of exams doesn't bother you, split them up as Whopity says...

ATPL. It's 14 papers as opposed to 7-8 or whatever, but it's nowhere near double the amount of work, as there is a lot of duplication across subjects.

Originally, all I wanted to get was an IR on my PPL but, after considering the alternatives the easiest option and best bang for the money was to end up with a so-called frozen ATPL.

I don't know how long you've been a PPL but since you are dedicated enough not to have given up after your first 100hrs and you're looking at expanding your horizons, chances are you may end up wanting to do an IR at some stage, both because of your improved choices when flying privately and because it will come in useful for your instructing.

Plus it's good fun.

Plus, as someone else said, if you're considering early retirement, you will have time on your hands and could very well end up being offered the opportunity to fly full-time, other than instructing (not at the moment, granted :p). There is no point in restricting your choices for the sake of £300.-

Finally, the other reason I say this is because the two CPL-only instructors I met ended up regretting their original choice. In fact, one of them I met at Bristol where he was preparing to sit his 14 ATPLs.

[Sorry, I appear to have repeated most of Orbit's points above. Should have read his/her post better]

I have recently finsihed training at a place down south that caters for cpl and atpl distance learning. I noticed whilst there that there an awful lot of guys and gals well in excess of 40 who are doing their cpl exams in order to be instructors . I feel you will be far from alone if you decide to go that route