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Guide to obtaining a JAA PPL in the US (part 1)

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Guide to obtaining a JAA PPL in the US (part 1)

Old 21st Dec 2007, 15:36
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This will set you back in proficiency every time. I don't think many people on a part-time course will achieve their PPL in the 45 hours required.
Thats a point worth considering, if you are doing the UK PPL to a good standard the average is about 10 hours longer, I know some schools who have no problems with 45 hour courses but I know they cut some corners and gloss over a few lessons. Yea we covered that inn XXX exercise we will just tick that off etc
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Old 21st Dec 2007, 17:52
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You also forgot:
  • cost of accomodation near Shobdon
  • aircraft hire for skills test
  • night qualification
At least compare like with like.
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Old 21st Dec 2007, 18:53
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Using an FAA CFI for FAA PPL which is perfectly legal to use in the Uk with NO conversion (and includes night flying):

Per hour
Aeroplane (C172 or PA28) $70
Instructor $35
Examiner $400
Ground exam $90

Say 55 hours: $6365 which today =<£3500

Flight: £350
Hotel: £645 for 30 days

Grand total to do it in America in 55 hours: £4495 and guaranteed in 30 days
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Old 21st Dec 2007, 19:25
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Yep. Way I understand it is that it's perfectly legal to fly a G-reg on an FAA PPL within the UK.

BUT you can't add anything to it (like ME, IR) and use those privileges in a G-reg. Need to fly an N-reg for that. And I understand that this is a UK-only thing: you can't fly a G-reg abroad on an FAA PPL.

Still, if you want to remain in the UK and fly VFR in SEP aircraft, an FAA PPL is as good as a JAA PPL. In this respect, an FAA PPL is more comparable with an NPPL than with a PPL. Anybody knows the approximate cost of an NPPL vs. a PPL?

Plus, this might all change when EASA takes over.
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Old 21st Dec 2007, 22:25
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You also forgot:
  • cost of accomodation near Shobdon
  • aircraft hire for skills test
  • night qualification
At least compare like with like.
You forgot that the air fare to the USA is not included
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Old 2nd Jan 2008, 22:15
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Just a quick note to say that the CAA standards document describing approved FTOs cannot be found under the URL that I originally mentioned. Look here now:

http://www.caa.co.uk/application.asp...detail&id=2854
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Old 3rd Jan 2008, 08:49
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... Oh and also consider whether you would prefer George Bush to Gordon Brown teaching you how to fly. llanfairpg

Bush - definitely NO.

Brown - definitely NO (poor fellow is almost blind although he is a billion times more intelligent than one other candidate)

Blair - definitely YES

Why? Plenty of SPIN!

Edited to say that this thread by BackPacker is brilliant. Well done and a happy 2008 to all!
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Old 4th Jan 2008, 22:07
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Suppose you wan't to fly N-registred airplanes in Europe, so in fact, the only ratings you will ever need are FAA ratings.

Suppose you wan't to get a FAA PPL and a FAA IR.

Is it possible to do this not in the USA but mainly in Europe ? That means, studying in Europe for first the theory, doing the exams in the US or in the EU (if possible)of the FAA PPL and then doing the practice lessons with an FAA Rated flight instructor on an N registred plane in europe ? And doing the practical exam in the US or the EU (if possible) ?

The same thing for the FAA IR ??

I was told today many instructors in europe are FAA Rated and they teach on N registred planes in europe, and you can do your exams somewhere in Paris ? Is this correct ?
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Old 7th Jan 2008, 09:20
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Cool correct

Hi Sternone, that's all correct. The ground exam centre is at Le Bourget, Paris. Only caveat, the exams are (very) expensive compared to JAA exams in JAA-land, and FAA exams in the US...

Sam.
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Old 8th Jan 2008, 11:56
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Faa Ppl

In another thread, IO540 had a good tip:

For someone already going to the USA, the smartest thing is to concurrently do a JAA PPL and the standalone FAA PPL.
Very sensible advice if eventually you decide to go on with an IR, and somehow have access to an N-reg: The FAA IR is much more easily obtainable (right now) than a JAA IR. Or if you plan to do any flying in the US, either immediately after your skills test (hour building comes to mind) or later on holidays.

Obviously you've got to tell your instructor as early as possible that you want to do both the JAA and FAA PPL, so that both syllabi can be covered in the 45 hours. In addition to all the JAA stuff, this means that the instructor also needs to cover:
- Night flying (5 hours minimum)
- Some additional flying skills, such as turning around a point.
- There are some differences as to how the 45 hours should be spent, particularly with regards to the cross country time.
The details are in FAR Part 61 (specifically 61.109). Make sure you are thoroughly familiar with these requirements and plan the 45 hours accordingly. Also make sure that on cross countries you take the appropriate forms with you and have all the correct logbook entries made to prevent duplication of effort.

There are some additional costs:
- FAA PPL theory exam (about 90 USD). The contents is comparable in practical knowledge to the 7 JAA theory exams but contains far less irrelevant material. You do need to be familiar with US aviation law and US airspace though.
- FAA PPL skills test (about 300 USD). If you are lucky enough to find a dual-licensed examiner (JAA and FAA) you might be able to combine both skills tests in one flight. But there are not many of those around, so expect to do two separate flight tests with different examiners. The good news is that the time spent in the air during both flight tests also counts towards the 45 hours requirements, so the only real additional cost is the examiner/test fee.
For your skills test it is a good idea to obtain a copy of the FAA Practical Test Standards, which lists what you need to perform, and what the tolerances are.
- You need an FAA Class 3 in any case to fly solo in US airspace, so no additional costs there.
- You need a "Restricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit" from the FCC if you want to fly an N-reg outside the US. I understand there's no exam involved if you submit your FAA PPL to the FCC, but there is an administrative fee of about USD 150 charged.

Once you've done the FAA ground and flight tests, and have the required hours, the examiner will give you a temporary (hand-written) license, which is valid for 90 days or so. From that moment on you can exercise all the privileges of your FAA PPL. And obviously within those 90 days you can expect your permanent license to arrive in the post.

(As an aside, the FAA license is a credit-card sized thing which neatly fits in your wallet. It has your date of birth on it, so it can be used to prove your age in bars, restaurants and so forth. I've heard that this is often used to impress members of the opposite sex.)

Then, you've got to maintain your FAA PPL in addition to the JAA PPL. Unlike a JAA PPL, the FAA PPL and the SEP class rating do not expire at all. So even if you don't use it for a decade, it stays valid. However, in order to use the privileges, you have to have done:
- A Biennial Flight Review (BFR) in the last 24 months. A BFR needs to be done by an FAA CFI (Certified Flight Instructor) and will consist, at minimum, of an hour groundschool/refresher and an hour in the air. Only once the instructor is satisfied with your proficiency will he/she sign you off. But you can't "fail" a BFR: the instructor will just keep on training you until he/she is satisfied.
If you find an FAA CFI who is also a JAA FI then the BFR can also count as the one hour training flight needed for the JAA license renewal. But these persons are very hard to come by.
- 3 landings in the last 90 days. This recency rule is the same as JAA, except for night:The FAA requires three night landings in order to take passengers at night, while JAA only requires one out of the three landings to be at night.

You also need a valid FAA Class 3 medical in order to exercise the FAA PPL privileges. There are several JAA Medical Examiners that can do FAA medicals too in Europe and since the tests for both medicals are the same, you usually only need to pay a small administrative fee to be issued an FAA medical in addition to a JAA medical.

And the last thing is that you've got to keep the FAA informed about a change of address.

So for an additional cost of about 400 dollars (minimum) you can be the proud owner of a "standalone" FAA PPL in addition to a JAA PPL. It is also possible to obtain a "piggyback" FAA PPL, based on your JAA PPL. This "based on" means that your FAA PPL is only valid as long as your JAA PPL is valid, and all the JAA PPL requirements (including medical) have been met. It requires a letter from the CAA to the JAA that your license is indeed valid (and the CAA charges something like 30 UKP for the effort of sending that letter) and a visit to an FAA district office plus some paperwork. If planned well in advance, this is probably good enough for the occasional holiday, but for any serious use of your FAA PPL, consider what IO540 wrote:

The problem with a piggyback FAA PPL is that you are building a house of cards. Any one of a number of factors can kill your FAA PPL: the 5 year JAA PPL renewal, the 2-year JAA flight review, the CAA medical, etc. A piggyback is OK for the occassional trip to the USA where you want to rent a spamcan and fly around a bit, but I wouldn't recommend it as a future proof document for e.g. the FAA IR route which like any IR will be a long term owner-pilot project.

Last edited by BackPacker; 8th Jan 2008 at 14:46.
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Old 12th Feb 2008, 21:58
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TSA "Flight Training Complete" status

This must be the best kept secret in the whole TSA process, because this is the first time I've heard of this since I did my flying in the US two years ago.

IO540 wrote recently:
trained in the USA 2 years ago; did the IR there.

When I visited the USA again recently (1st time since the IR) Immigration spotted the long lapsed flight training Visa in my passport. You could see the man's 2 braincells revolving at 5rpm.... 9/11 and all that... He claimed that he had information saying that I did not complete the study (learnt to fly but not to land, perhaps??) and I got taken to a special terrorist interrogation facility (well not quite but the 2nd lot were crude even by normal U.S. Immigration standards) where more time was wasted.
SoCal App wrote, and this is completely novel to me:
When the Training is concluded, the Student is required to complete a document to that effect which the Flight School then countersign and file and they then log onto the AFSP website and update your training request to that effect.
and
As an aside, the student filing the AFSP request can log onto the AFSP website and check the status of ALL training requests. Log on and down the left side is the "Request History" Click it and you are presented with all your training requests that you have ever submitted and the status of each. You should see "Training Completed".
Sooo... After you've finished your training, make sure the flight school presents you with a TSA form requiring your signature somewhere to identify the fact that you've finished training. And a month or so after getting home, logon to the AFSP website again to make sure everything has been administered properly. Otherwise you might run into problems on a subsequent US visit, even years after.

Complete thread here: http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3907361
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Old 24th Feb 2008, 18:24
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M-1 visa required or not?

An interesting question came up in another thread about whether an M-1 visa is required or not for flight training in the US, if you do a part-time course (22 hours a week or less). See the discussion here, approximately from post 10 onwards:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=314913

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Old 5th Mar 2008, 23:30
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I've been looking into doing an FAA PPL and wondered what the law was in regards to using that in Ireland. Couldn't find much on here about that, so I e-mailed the IAA. Their reply was quite informative so thought I'd quote it here, might be of use to someone else!


An FAA PPL is valid for use in Ireland for PPL privileges only and under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) only. The licence would be valid for use on FAA ‘N’ registered aircraft and all IAA ‘EI’ registered aircraft. However, if you intend to fly EI registered aircraft outside of Irish airspace you would need to check with the Aviation Authority of the country/countries that you intend to fly the EI registered aircraft in that they accept it. To fly on any other countries registered aircraft, you would need to obtain written permission from the Aviation Authority in which the aircraft are registered in.

It would not be possible to do an Instrument Rating course and skill test in Ireland for the issue of an IR rating onto your FAA licence. You would need to complete that in the US or check with the FAA whether they have FAA approved schools outside of the US. If you do obtain an Instrument Rating on your FAA licence you could still not exercise Instrument Rating privileges in Ireland on an FAA licence. You would need to convert to an Irish JAA licence which would require you to join an Irish Registered Training Facility, complete the PPL ground course, pass the 4 PPL theory exams and pass a PPL flight test. You would also need to obtain an Irish Class 2 medical certificate.
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Old 27th Mar 2008, 15:01
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Hi Backpacker I'm Dutch as well but I'll talk English for the rest of the people here...

I'm planning to go to the US in June in order to get a PPL as well and I'm looking for a good flight school, but it's quite hard to find one with accomodation and all. I am also considering OFT, but I still have a few questions:

Do you know if the price is including possible VAT and what about landing fees?

I'm also thinking about getting a FAA PPL and convert it to a JAA licence here, do you know more about that?

Thanks!
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Old 27th Mar 2008, 15:09
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Daphne, as far as I know the five JAA schools in the US all have accomodation included in the base price of the package. These are typically shared apartments where you do have a bedroom each, but have to share the rest. And by the way, most of the students will be male, which might be a consideration. For a larger fee, I know at least OFT has a package deal with a nearby hotel where you can get your own room.

As far as I know all prices on all websites are VAT inclusive, and virtually all airports/fields/strips in the US charge NO landing fees. There may be a few private fields that do, but those are not the fields that you will typically visit.

Getting an FAA license and converting it to JAA is not possible easily, as far as I know, unless you have a fairly large number of hours as PIC after obtaining your license. So if you go to the US for an FAA PPL and try to "convert" it to JAA straight after coming back, you've got to count on having to do all the theory exams and the flight test again. It's only the training hours, which form the experience requirement part of the JAA PPL, that you do not have to do all over again.
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Old 27th Mar 2008, 23:05
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Depends on what you mean by "large" and whether you mind having a UK JAA PPL instead of a Dutch one. UK CAA will issue a JAA PPL to an FAA PPL holder who has 100 hours PIC and passes (from memory) Air Law and Human Factors + the skills test.
That's what I meant although I did not know the exact number of hours. It's not something you could consider straight after doing your PPL.

Obviously if you do mind a UK-issued JAA PPL you can always convert the FAA PPL to a UK issued JAA PPL, and then convert that to a Dutch registered JAA PPL. I wouldn't know what the Dutch authorities require to convert an FAA PPL into a Dutch registered JAA PPL. You'd have to ask the IVW about that.

Another consideration, Daphne, is that the UK JAA PPL exams are handled just like the FAA exams: you can sit them at the flight school more or less when and where you want. The Dutch authorities are a little more formal about this: you will have to go to Nieuwegein (I think it is) and do your exams at the CBR location there - yes that's the same organization that does the drivers license exams. There are only half a dozen exam sessions each year. They are also considerably more costly than the UK JAA PPL exams if you do them at the US flight school (where the first try is included in the package anyway). So if I were you I would not do an FAA PPL in the US and then "convert" it to a JAA PPL when you get back. Instead, simply do an JAA PPL in the US. (But I'm biased, as that's what I did.)

You may however want to do an FAA PPL in addition to a JAA PPL when you're over there. Covered in depth a few posts earlier.
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Old 28th Mar 2008, 13:47
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Thank you for your reaction.

I understand that a larger amount of hours is required to convert a FAA PPL in a JAA PPL, but there aren't lots of flying schools in the US who provide JAA PPL courses, specially not in the region I am interested in.

I've planned to go to Texas because I'm more familiar with the place. The only possibility would be a FAA PPL then. Do you think the KNVVL knows more about 'convertion'?

The biggest 'problem' would indeed be the accomodation and the number of men so I'm looking for trustworthy housing.

BTW, good and very useful articles
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Old 28th Mar 2008, 15:43
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No JAA schools in Texas, indeed. I have heard a rumour that there's a school in Arizona trying to get JAA/CAA certified. You might want to check that out. I don't know the name of the school though.

I have no doubt the KNVVL knows about the conversion, but the authoritative source would be the IVW: http://www.ivw.nl. However, I'm pretty sure the short version will be that you need something like 100 hours PIC before they'll let you convert your FAA PPL into a Dutch JAA PPL without doing all exams over again. And you'd definitely have to do air law and a skills test anyway. Just like the UK CAA requires. In other words, that won't be an option for you in the near future unless you do some serious hour building on your FAA PPL.

Having said that, I know that there are a few N-reg planes in the Netherlands for hire. One of the places is Air Service Limburg in Maastricht (www.asl.nl) and there are a few members of my club (based in Rotterdam) who own N-reg planes privately and might want to hire them out to you.

Another option you might want to consider is to do your flying training at an FAA flight school in Texas, but not do any exams there (except the FAA mandated pre-solo exams which is a laugh anyway). Get all your lessons properly signed off though. Then come back to NL, do all the theory here plus the skills test. You can save a lot of money on flying costs that way but end up with a Dutch JAA PPL anyway. Do check with a Dutch school/examiner beforehand to see what sort of paperwork they need in order to accept the hours flown in the US as proper training hours.

One other thing to be aware of, if you want to do FAA training, is that there are two types of FAA schools, part 61 and part 141 or something like that. Only one of those types is SEVIS approved, meaning that they can issue you the paperwork for an M-1 visa. All the JAA schools in the US are SEVIS approved so this is not an issue if you do JAA training.
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Old 30th Mar 2008, 10:43
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I've asked 'Verkeer en Waterstaat' and they said the same, after getting a FAA PPL you must fly 100 hours and make the airlaw and human performences examns. Doesn't sound very good... think I'll look for the flight school in Arizona you mentioned.

In Rotterdam as well? Is that at 'RAC'? That would be great since I'm going to study there.

I've thought about the idea of flying in Texas and do the theory here as well, but isn't it necessary to do some theory before going solo?
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Old 30th Mar 2008, 14:54
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I've thought about the idea of flying in Texas and do the theory here as well, but isn't it necessary to do some theory before going solo?
The FAA mandates a very simple pre-solo written exam which is nowhere near as complicated as the actual PPL exams. It's just 18 or so basic questions on emergency procedures, airport procedures, airspace surrounding the place where you train and so on. Furthermore, your instructor has to sign you out each time you go out on your own, and will verify your navigation plan and other things to make sure you return safely.

JAA does not mandate anything before solo or x-country solo. There is a "suggestion" somewhere that the instructor should check the theoretical knowledge of the solo candidate but there is no set exam. Some schools have made their own FAA-style pre-solo exam specifically for this purpose.

On the other hand, a lot of schools think it's a good idea to let you study the theory and do the written exams while you are actually doing flying training, and if you think about it, it makes sense. To make sure you actually progress with the theory, a lot of schools require that you do air law before first solo, and nav before first x-country solo. But it's not a legal requirement anywhere, as far as I know, and if you have a good reason not to do those exams (for instance because you're going to do them, or have already done them, in another country) I'm sure that the flight school will understand and come up with something else, a la FAA.

Daphne, you also have a PM (Private Message)

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