RichardG82

I've been looking at gaining my PPL in the US mainly because of the price and being from Northern Ireland there arent many schools nearby. A few schools have caught my eye - Orlando flight training, Naples air centre and Ormond Beach Aviation. Anyone know anything about these? They all offer the JAA PPL, what will this allow me to do? Is there many differences between the JAA and JAR? Also if anyone can reccommend any flying schools abroad!

Thanks!

Shunter

JAA = the authority
JAR = the rules

Just like

FAA = the authority
FAR = the rules

mcgoo

A JAA PPL is one that is issued by a JAA state, a JAR PPL is a foreign PPL (FAA for example) that complies with the JAA regulations.

RichardG82

so i will be able to fly in the JAA countries?

Shunter

If you go to the states and get a JAA PPL it means that the training, the exams and the tests satisfied the JAR standards (JARs are a bunch of documents specifying how things are done, and by who). A lot of people mix up the 2 terms.

An FAA PPL is not a JAR PPL. It's an ICAO-compliant PPL which individual countries validate for use in their airspace. This is irrelevant in your case anyway.

mcgoo

Be careful with some of the US schools though, as some advertise a 'JAR Compliant PPL' and you will get an FAA PPL with these.

bookworm

In UK legislation, a JAA PPL is a PPL issued by a JAA member state. A JAR-FCL PPL is a PPL issued by the UK CAA (and is therefore a JAA PPL). The JAR-FCL PPL term is used to distinguish it from a UK PPL issued by the UK CAA before the JAA stuff came into being.

Scouse_Phil

So, if you do the Pro pilot course for example with OFT would this mean you can fly any plane anywhere in the world? Or is there a conversion course required?

IRISHPILOT

That'll depend on what you want. If you want to go professional it makes little sense to get a JAA PPL, but I guess you want a PPL only, not commence to CPL, etc?

Even then, an FAA PPL (that is the US system that is a good bit cheaper to do and keep up than any JAR PPL), will be enough to fly a G or EI reg aircraft, also across the border. It will also give you a free night qualification with it (though you are not allowed to fly night VFR in the south anyway).

The JAA PPL needs to be done with an approved school, so make sure they are if they are in the US. Alternatively, there are many nice and cheap places around Europe offering a JAA PPL...

good luck! IP

BackPacker

If you have a JAR-FCL PPL (that means a JAR-FCL compliant PPL issued by a JAA member state) then you can fly any aircraft that's registered in any JAA member state, worldwide, within the limits of your license and the class/type ratings contained in it.

A JAR-FCL PPL, being ICAO compatible, will also be rendered valid in a lot of ICAO member states (including the US) so that you can fly aircraft registered there, but not internationally. There will be some bureaucracy involved depending on the state involved, and usually only the basic PPL will be validated, not any ratings contained in it. This is mostly intended for flying holidays.

If you want to obtain a JAR-FCL CPL or ATPL, then one of the prerequisites is an ICAO compliant PPL, but this does not necessarily have to be a JAR-FCL PPL.

If your interest is purely recreational flying then the JAR-FCL PPL that you can obtain with the three schools you mentioned (and there's one in South California and one in Canada as well) will make it perfectly legal for you to jump into a single engine piston aircraft immediately when you get back from your trip to Florida. (Well, that's assuming you pass, then you've got to send stuff to the UK CAA and wait for it to come back before you're legal. And the club will want a checkout with you before they let you loose.)

I did this a little over two years ago. My experiences and a lot more info here:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=278995

IRISHPILOT

Just another note:

JAR stands for Joint Aviation Requirements (taken directly from the JAA homepage under "definitions" - jaa.nl)

These are minimum requirements set down by the JAA (Joint Aviation Authorities), followed by most of the member countries. - France for example remains below the requirements for the class 2 medical, the UK above the requirements for the RT competence.

All this matters little when deciding what PPL to use for flying in the North of Ireland (and guessing you will want to cross the border or go to Scotland some time). For this, you will need an ICAO PPL. Any ICAO PPL is good for this, be it from the US or Madagascar, Congo or Russia (though the US one would be the obvious choice)

There is nothing you cannot do with an FAA PPL in NI, you can do more, actually: Fly at night without the extra NQ, fly US registered aircraft in the Europe, no expiry date, cheap medicals (in Dublin for example, but quite possibly in Belfast too). I have heard that there is a restriction with regards to crossing borders (as BP mentioned), but could not find the reference, so if someone has it, I stand to be corrected.

Also depends on what you want to do with the PPL. - If you want to go professional, it would be folly to get a JAA PPL.

BackPacker

As far as crossing borders is concerned, it isn't so much an explicit restriction, as something that's not explicitly allowed.

Here's how it works. Every state in this world, in principle, requires that every person coming into the country requires a passport+visa, every item coming into the country requires import duty, and every person in the country needs to comply with local laws and regulations, including licensing. Obviously for international airline travel this is a bit cumbersome, to say the least, so at the Munich (?) convention all countries that are member of ICAO have set a number of rules on recognition of foreign licenses and other documentation.

The rules basically specify that if a pilot holds a license issued by country A and flies in an aircraft registered in country A (within the limits of his license, and while complying with all the relevant regulations of country A), then all other countries will accept that combination without further problems. Since all JAA countries have mutual recognition of each licenses, this also applies to a license issued by A on an aircraft registered in country B, where both A and B are JAA countries.

This privilege does NOT automatically extend to flying an aircraft registered in a JAA state on a non-JAA license (FAA in this case). The UK CAA considers an FAA license good enough to fly a G-reg up to PPL level/privileges (that's explicitly mentioned in the ANO), but other countries do not necessarily share that same view. So if you ever crossover into another country in a G-reg on your FAA license, you have to ask permission to do so from the country where you'll be flying in. This probably will not be a major issue when it concerns only PPL privileges, but it is an additional hurdle. One you will not have if you fly an N-reg on an FAA PPL, or a G-reg on a JAA PPL.