ATPL's Finished ... Now what?
 

Hey everyone, I'm looking for some advice on what the best course of action would be.

Currently I have my European PPL license with a Night Rating and have completed the 14 atpl exams. Is there any point getting started with the CPL - ME - IR at the moment or should I wait 1-2 years? I would be looking to apply for jobs in Europe. Any advice is appreciated.

Pete, you list your location as England? Are you a UK or EU citizen? If you are a UK national you wont have the right to work in the EU and the chances of getting a visa to fly in the EU will be next to zero in the forseeable years.

Well now exams are done the 36 months is ticking so I wouldn't delay things for too long. You could lock in the exams credits with a SE IR and upgrade to an ME IR at a later date.

I have duel citizenship. With a single engine IR my exams would be valid indefinitely?

7 years after the expiry of an IR for aeroplanes and an IR or type rating for helicopters.

You'll need the CPL as well, but yes a single IR will save the exams

I would apply to the UK CAA for a UK PPL licence & recognition of ATPL exam passes pre-Brexit, and look to hold two fATPL licences concurrently.

Clarkey,

While good advice, that is only possible if the exams were completed pre Brexit. If the EASA exams were passed after 01/01/21 they wont be recognised for UK Part FCL.

Income is decent, enough to save at the end of the month. Financially I would be paying for all my training as I have enough saved up. I'm 30 years old so I'm not living with my parents.

Another thought is to do the CPL ME IR now while the schools are not busy so you can complete the training relatively quickly. Remember that once there are signs of market recovery everyone that has been sitting on the fence will jump on the bandwagon and push to get the training done. With quite a few larger (highly leveraged) ATO's gone into administration the overall market's training capacity has been reduced so you would be possibly be looking at substantial delays in the training once things return to "normal".

Having the CPL ME IR you would then only need to do a quick 2 week MCC/JOC to be able to start applying for jobs.

As Negan mentioned above, do not fall for the 30K P2F scheme that is currently so in vogue with the Instagram crowd. Wait, be patient and real opportunities will come along. My point is that you need to be qualified to take advantage of any of those opportunities, however unlikely, and the only way to do this is when you have the CPL ME IR completed.

No need to do the ME bit either. Just get SE CPL and SEIR. That way you save the exams and you have nothing to keep current. When the time comes you do a months' training and you'll have a 'brand new' modular fATPL/MCC rather than one completed a few years back and kept current.

I see your point but actually the SEIR would also need to be kept current. And whereas the MEIR would qualify you for quite a few GA jobs, the SEIR will significantly reduce the amount of GA jobs you can apply for.

There is no regulation that says you have to keep anything current. An MEIR wouldn't get you a GA Job by itself, and you would be competing against many more experienced guys for those few that actually exist.

To a low hours pilot an MEIR is really only useful as a stepping stone. Regardless, IMHO it's better to save the money and get an SEIR, then do whatever training you need for the MEIR when the time comes, rather than the bare minimum every year. Unfortunately a 'new' qualification can have more perceived value to certain airlines than one which has been revalidated for several years.

The bonus of course, is that if your first IR is an MEIR you need to fly 15 hours IR in a MEP. However, if you do the MEIR as an add-on IR, you only need a minimum of 2 hours MEP.

I am in the exact same situation. Just finished my ATPL theory & really don't know if I should proceed with the rest now or wait 1/2 y

5 years after the expiry of an IR you need to redo it with the CAA - up till then you can renew with the local guy. So you only need to "keep current" or renew once every 5 years if you want to avoid their clutches.

Paco, have you a reference for that?

after 7 years, I thought, and retake the exams

Even then there are options: as holder of an ICAO IR with 50 hours PIC under IFR you can take a verbal exam to get an IR, so it stands to reason you can renew one too.

Paco, that regulation is out of date, that after 5 years you need to test with a CAA examiner. They did away with the CAA test centres and staff examiners for initial IRs (also for 5 year lapses) approximately around the time of JAA to EASA switch over.
So it is just the 7 year rule now.

OK, thanks for that - I should keep up with the reading :)

Hi could you tell me where you did your ppl and how much did you spend?
How did you complete the 14 atpl exams?
I want to start with PPL so I can proceed with ATPL theory. Any suggestions?