Questions?
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Questions?
I'm leaving states for England to live with my Fiancée and want to continue my goal of hopefully flying for an airline. I am planning on converting my ratings to JAA and wanted to know if anyone had been down this road before? Also I was wondering if any airlines offer work visas? If so, do I need to obtain a type rating or do most airlines in the UK pay for it once you are hired? Are their any schools that one would recommend for rating conversions? Any advice or recommendations would greatly be appreciated.
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I have my CPL ASEL AMEL CFI CFII MEI A&P. Total time of 1200 and around 100 multi. Most of the time is flight instruction. I was planning on converting to JAA ATPL frozen. I am getting my class 1 medical in Gatwick shortly. If you have a first class medical from the states you get a discount on the test at Gatwick. Every little bit helps.
I say there boy
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Firstly on getting work rights. I'm assuming that you are a US citizen, which means that you'll need a work permit to work here.
Trying to get an airline to sponsor you to a UK work permit is a complete non-starter: there are always enough similarly-experienced British pilots out there, currently many hundreds of whom are unemployed.
The easiest way to get round this is to hurry up and marry your fiancée (who I am assuming is a UK or EU citizen), which would get you a work permit without the requirement of having to be sponsored by a company.
Now onto licence conversion.
At your experience level you're looking at doing the full ATPL theory course with no exceptions (14 exams, 8-12 months distance learning or 6 months full-time classroom-based), the CPL conversion (length at the schools discretion, expect minimum 5 hours) and the MEIR conversion course (absolute minimum 15 hours). Add in an MCC course which is virtually a pre-requisite for the airlines here.
Budget £2,000 for the theory course, at least £2,000 for the CPL, £4 - 5,000 for the IR, plus at least £2,000 for all the CAA fees. MCC courses range from £2,000 to £5,000.
In total you'll be doing well if you get much change from £15,000
Of course all the above does not include living expenses.
If you want to instruct you'll have to do the full instructor rating course - £5 to 7,000.
Welcome to the expensive world of the JAA!
As for type ratings, well, no, you shouldn't have to pay for one. But people are buying them, and are gettign jobs off the back of them, certain airlines have set a precedent that they require them prior to considering people for jobs. So if you decided to do one, you can add on another £7,000 to £22,000 depending on what type (the range I've given here is SD33/SD36 to A320).
cheers!
foggy.
Trying to get an airline to sponsor you to a UK work permit is a complete non-starter: there are always enough similarly-experienced British pilots out there, currently many hundreds of whom are unemployed.
The easiest way to get round this is to hurry up and marry your fiancée (who I am assuming is a UK or EU citizen), which would get you a work permit without the requirement of having to be sponsored by a company.
Now onto licence conversion.
At your experience level you're looking at doing the full ATPL theory course with no exceptions (14 exams, 8-12 months distance learning or 6 months full-time classroom-based), the CPL conversion (length at the schools discretion, expect minimum 5 hours) and the MEIR conversion course (absolute minimum 15 hours). Add in an MCC course which is virtually a pre-requisite for the airlines here.
Budget £2,000 for the theory course, at least £2,000 for the CPL, £4 - 5,000 for the IR, plus at least £2,000 for all the CAA fees. MCC courses range from £2,000 to £5,000.
In total you'll be doing well if you get much change from £15,000
Of course all the above does not include living expenses.
If you want to instruct you'll have to do the full instructor rating course - £5 to 7,000.
Welcome to the expensive world of the JAA!
As for type ratings, well, no, you shouldn't have to pay for one. But people are buying them, and are gettign jobs off the back of them, certain airlines have set a precedent that they require them prior to considering people for jobs. So if you decided to do one, you can add on another £7,000 to £22,000 depending on what type (the range I've given here is SD33/SD36 to A320).
cheers!
foggy.
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You will have to do the whole groundschool bit. Min requirement is 650 hours of instruction and then 14 exams on trivia and niff naff. If you do it full time at a school it will take approx 6 months.
You will have to do the CPL skills test, I am fairly certain you will need to do an IR as well. Your ME rating should be accepted though. If you want to instruct in Europe I think you will have to do a JAR approved Instructors rating.
The best people to ask will be the CAA though. Have a look through the UK CAA Safety Regulation Group website for more info.
You will have to do the CPL skills test, I am fairly certain you will need to do an IR as well. Your ME rating should be accepted though. If you want to instruct in Europe I think you will have to do a JAR approved Instructors rating.
The best people to ask will be the CAA though. Have a look through the UK CAA Safety Regulation Group website for more info.
PPRuNe Knight in Shining Armour
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One more (very small) thing to add to my learned colleagues observations, you'll have to do an RT test as well.
I'd put the MCC at the bottom of the list, I think its importance is on the slide, especially as it's included in any 2 crew type-rating course.
I'd put the MCC at the bottom of the list, I think its importance is on the slide, especially as it's included in any 2 crew type-rating course.
