ICAO PPL and Modular EASA ATPL

[Ghaith Garraoui]

Hello,

I’m a Tunisian citizen with zero flying experience. I’m planning to do my ICAO PPL in Tunisia with the objective of continuing towards an EASA frozen ATPL in Europe. My question is the following:
The main objective being to save money on the PPL phase, does a (Tunisian) ICAO PPL allow me to continue with my EASA ATPL theory, EASA CPL and all the required EASA ratings and courses at a European flight school or do I need to have an EASA PPL?
Thank you.

[rudestuff]

You need an ICAO PPL. There is no need to get an EASA PPL, although it would make things much cheaper to do the IR first.

[flybyschool]

Yes, I see no problem in doing that. Just take note that you are required to have logged at least 100 hours in order to convert your ICAO PPL to EASA PPL… which you will need to do at one stage or another

you could enroll on an ATPL Theory course with your ICAO PPL

[rudestuff]

Just to clarify: there is no need to hold an EASA PPL. You can do the exams and go straight to an EASA CPL. However (as we all hopefully know) it's much cheaper to get your IR whilst hour building before your CPL, in which case you'd need an EASA PPL to hang the IR on.

[Ghaith Garraoui]

Thank you for your answers everyone.

So, per your comments, I can continue with my EASA licenses and ratings with an ICAO PPL, but since the cheapest way to do the whole ATPL curriculum is by completing my IR while hour building, i.e. before my CPL, and because IR requires me to be an EASA PPL holder, it's best to hold an EASA PPL. Am I correct?

Now assuming that I understood you right, since the conversion from an ICAO PPL to an EASA PPL requires me to have at least 100 total flight hours and with me already having about 50 flight hours after my ICAO PPL training in Tunisia, can I do my hour building in Europe and as soon as I get to 100 total flight hours pass my EASA PPL exams (Air Law, Human Factors) and skill tests which will then allow me to do my IR?

I know I'm overcomplicating things here, but haven't we all done it in search of the best and cheapest flight training formulas? Thank you for your patience anyway!

[rudestuff]

There's a bit more to it than that. Let's say you already had your Tunisian PPL and a couple of hundred hours: you could do the ATPL exams and go straight into a CPL course (because it's all dual flying). But if you've got a Tunisian PPL and want to use it to hour build in another country using their aircraft then you need to have your PPL validated for that purpose (or find a Tunisian registered aircraft there!)

​​​​​​Each country is different in that respect. Iceland for example give an automatic 3 month validation.

[Ghaith Garraoui]

Pardon my ignorance, but by "PPL validated", you mean converted to EASA PPL or is "validation" a more straightforward/easy procedure?

[rudestuff]

Validated means 'accepted by' which is generally a paperwork exercise but can be whatever a country likes.