Full time is the way to do it. Save up the money and then go for it.
But as others have stated, don’t pay up front. Make sure you sit them down and tell them exactly what you want and the time you have.

I was assured mine would be completed in 3-4 weeks, through no fault of my own I finally got the rating after 6 weeks. Basically they were too laid back and not used to 3rd party work, and naturally the aircraft went in for its 100 hrly. Training was to a good standard though.

Fonz121, can you elaborate why you think that doing it full time

:confused:

It might get you through the check flight quicker and cheaper, but could lead to a seriously shortened life span :eek: especially for a low hour pilot who doesn't go straight from the MECIR training to a job where you drive IFR all the time... because as you compress the learning process, you also decrease retention :8

I know it's a bit of a cliche to say that a pilot's licence is a licence to learn but this can't be more true in the case of an IR, whether full- or part-time. Your initial forms the basis for future renewals.:ok:

PlankBender,
I did my MECIR full time, and I know many others who also have. We're all still living, after quite a few renewals, and working in roles which we fly IFR every day.

Very few of us went straight into an IFR job after doing our MECIR.

I'd encourage anyone to do their MECIR in one hit. The learning process is made a bit easier by the constant learning.

However, I'd also encourage anyone with a fresh rating, to step into the IFR world (once you have it), very slowly. Don't make the first time you go IFR, a day where you're dodging weather and everything is down at the minima's.

morno

Hey mate,

Just my opinion but its like anything I guess. Take learning another language for example. If you do one lesson every week or whatever then its nowhere near as beneficial as doing it everyday for 4 weeks. Same goes for the MECIR I believe. A lot of students find it hard enough to remember how to conduct ADF intercepts after 3 solid days of doing them. I can only imagine having large gaps in between lessons in the learning stage would make it even more difficult to get your head around them.

Like I said though, just my opinion.

Did mine at Ad-Astral a few years back. For the first half of the rating, which was mostly on the sim, i was only doing 1 lesson a week, even once a fortnight sometimes. All whilst employed fulltime as a pilot. It didn't hurt, especially prior to each new sim lesson I went on microsoft flight sim to revise on procedures and scan.

Once we were in the aircraft, then tried to fly every second to third day so as i didn't overload my poor alcoholic affected brain too much. Used off days to review prevoius flights and prepare for the next.

Even now everytime a renewal comes up I just jump on the good old flight sim to brush off the cobwebs. Just come prepared

Cheers
Inthesoup