Obtaining EASA MEP, MEIR, & CPL in EU and then converting to UK CAA?
 

Hello,

I am a British citizen and have recently finished my PPL and just about to start my night rating and then my IR(R) / IMC rating thereafter.

To give me the best chances of employment at an airline, I have opted to pursue a fATPL for both UK CAA and EASA.

I will start my UK CAA + EASA ATPL theory in the new year alongside hours building, and I already hold a Class 1 medical for both UK CAA and EASA.

Looking at options for MEP, MEIR, & CPL in the UK, the prices are extremely high. For example, at Aeros, their price lists £41k for UK CAA MEP, MEIR, & CPL and to add £5k for the EASA conversions, giving £46k in total.

Comparing this to flight schools in EU, where I have seen £26k for MEP, MEIR, & CPL (including landing fees & charts). Is there any reason why I can’t obtain an EASA MEP, MEIR, & CPL in Europe and then convert it to UK CAA to give me a UK CAA and EASA fATPL? (Upon completion of A-UPRT and APS/MCC of course)

If so, what are the steps for converting to UK CAA, is it just skills tests which are required?

As an aside, would an MEP rating even be considered as EASA or UK CAA, or is this simply a rating endorsed onto my ICAO PPL and then my CPL thereafter?

Thank you in advance

Stapleford will almost certainly be cheaper than Aeros and is also a strong option for dual training. Closer to France too for the EASA IR test.

Why bother with EASA if you only hold the British nationality? Ryanair & Emerald both have a UK subsidiary, for the extra cost you are only adding Aer Lingus into the mix.

Advantage of doing both at the same time is the training will count towards both licences, and then you only have to do same familiarisation training and a skills test for each authority.

If you want a UK licence after getting EASA, then you would be looking to do at least 15 hours for the CPL course plus a skills test, MEP course plus skills test, then a CB-IR for ME-IR plus skills test. CB-IR would be the quickest way is a minimum of 10 hours. So 15 + 6 + 10 = 31 hours + 6 hours for the skills tests. A-UPRT & MCC would have to be redone if you do them at an EASA only school.

To convert a MEP rating from EASA to your UK licence would require 100 hours in that class.

Thank you, I have looked at Stapleford and the costs are around the £30k mark which is much cheaper than Aeros or Leading Edge, so this is definitely an option

Thank you for your in depth answer, the reason I want to get an EASA licence as well is primarily for Ryanair, yes they do have a UK subsidiary but they only operate 15 G reg aircraft, whereas they have many more EI reg aircraft based in the UK so presumably a lot more opportunities of becoming a cadet if you hold an EASA licence.

I was also planning on doing A-UPRT and APS/MCC at a dual approved school in the UK to obtain both.

I didn’t realise the training only counted towards the licence in the respective authority, I thought it would simply be a skills test and at most some familiarisation flying back in the UK, but it seems as though I would basically have to repeat everything which would cost even more.

I do still need to complete my ATPL theory exams and hours building so I have a while yet until I start these, perhaps in the future there may be an easier way to convert but I won’t count on that.

If you are going to get your IMC then do some hour building, Stapleford is a very good option to finish off. You get CAA & EASA training and it should cost a lot less than £30,000, closer to £13,000 for the core training (SEIR £2500, MEP £3000, MEIR £2500, CPL £5000) using their prices rounded UP.

Thank you, yes I was planning on obtaining my Night Rating and IMC rating ASAP, and then hopefully log 30 hours of IFR during my hours building to credit towards a CB(IR).

Could you share where you got the prices for Stapleford from please? When I looked yesterday I used the “Modular Pilot Pricelist” document which stated the training alone would cost £24622. However this does not mention CB(IR) which would affect the price quite a lot. (I would post the URL but I can’t post one until I have 8 posts)

I got those figures from both the private pilot and modular pilot price lists. I rounded up the 172 rate and multiplied by 10 instructional hours to give 2500 for the CBIR which assumes you don't use the sim. Obviously that's minimum hours, but if you need more training then for every extra hour you need you would also knock off an hour of hour building, so the extra cost is essentially just the instructors rate. Even if you did the full 25 hours (to go from 15>40) with an instructor the IR wouldn't cost more than £4000.

Of course you'll never find a flight school advertising or encouraging the IRR>CBIR>MEP>MEIR>CPL route simply because it is the cheapest and they need to make money from profitable simulators.

If their 6 hour MEP is £3000, then 5 hours for MEIR would be £2500 (half that if you do 3 hours in the sim)

Finishing of course with a 15 hour SECPL at under 5 grand.

I have spent the day compiling a spreadsheet comparing the costs of the CBIR > MEP > MEIR > CPL route with the traditional MEP > MEIR > CPL route at Stapleford.

Do you know for sure that EASA would allow the CBIR route? As far as I know, the IR(R) rating is UK only, and EASA have their own which is similar (BIR), so would the hours using the IR(R) count towards the EASA IR?

Taking into account training, licensing fees, skills test fees, aircraft hire for said skills tests, and fuel surcharge at Stapleford:
CBIR route - cost = £31,753, 212 hours TT
Traditional route - cost = £33,568, 231 hours TT

So the saving really isn’t that extreme, and I haven’t considered accommodation in these costs which would likely increase if I were to do the CBIR route because of the extra skills tests.

Is it worth doing the A-UPRT earlier on to save 3 hours of hours building?

I'm afraid it looks like you've got those figures completely wrong! You can expect to save about £10k with the CBIR route. How did you come up with 212 hours? A CPL is 200 hours max.

Oh yes, apologies, I added on some of the hours building costs by accident, the actual cost of the CBIR route is £27,253. I have shown the breakdown of the costs and hours below.

So after finishing my PPL I currently have 47 hours TT, 11.2 PIC. After my night rating and IMC rating I will have 68 hours TT, 13.2 PIC.

Before I can start CBIR, I need 40 hours XC PIC, and before I can start MEP I need 70 hours PIC, so I’ll do 57 hours of hours building which will put me at 125 hours TT, 70.2 PIC.

The CBIR training is 15 hours, plus 2 x 2 hour skills tests for CAA & EASA, plus a 1.5 hour ferry flight to perform the EASA skills test, this comes to a total of £5423 excluding the CAA & EASA skills test costs, 145.5 TT, 70.2 PIC.

MEP training up next, 6 hours plus 1 hour skills test and theory exam. £3769, 152.5 TT, 70.2 PIC.

MEIR conversion training 5 hours, plus 2 x 2 hour skills tests for each authority, plus the 1.5 hour ferry flight. £5613, 163 TT, 70.2 PIC.

Before I can start CPL I need 100 hours PIC so I’ll do another 30 hours of hours building. 193 TT, 100.2 PIC.

Lastly the CPL will be 15 hours training plus 2 x 2 hour skills tests, £4465, 212 TT, 100.2 PIC


Then on top of this we have the skills test fees:
MEP (both) = £190
CAA CBIR, MEIR, CPL = £995 each = £2985
EASA CBIR, MEIR, CPL = £500, £500, £300 = £1300
Total = £4475

Licence fees (I haven’t checked EASA so I have assumed them to be the same as CAA for simplicity)
MEP = £153 x 2 = £306.00
IR = £153 x 2 = £306.00
CPL = £308 x 2 = £616.00
Total = £1228

Fuel surcharge at Stapleford, last time I saw a value was £2/litre so I have assumed £40 per hour. 57 hours of training would be £2280 in fuel costs.

Totalling every value in bold gives £27253 and hours of 212TT, 100.2 PIC

With the rest of the costs (night rating, IMC, hours building, ATPL exams, A-UPRT, APS/MCC), it gives a total saving of around £8000 compared to the traditional route so you were correct! My apologies again.

Back to my question earlier about EASA and CBIR, can you confirm whether they will accept it?

You'd have to check with your EASA authority, they tend to interpret things differently from state to state. You haven't included your skills tests IR your ferry flights in your PIC time which has pushed your numbers higher than they need to be. A successful skills test can be logged as PIC/US. The only hours you need above 200 are the two CPL tests.

If you have :
47TT and 11 PIC (well done!)
You will have:
52TT and 13 PIC (3+2 night)
68TT and 14 PIC (15+1 IRR)
118TT and 64 PIC (50 XC PIC)
137TT and 68 PIC (15+2+2 CBIR)
​​​​​139TT and 70 PIC (2 hours PIC)
149TT and 74 PIC (6+2+2 MEP)
​​158TT and 78 PIC (5+2+2 MEIR)
180TT and 100 PIC (22 hours PIC)
195TT and 100 PIC (15 CPL course)
which leaves 5 hours spare.

Ah thank you once again, I didn’t realise the skills tests could be logged as ‘proper’ PIC. I actually have 13.2 after my PPL skills test then.

During my night rating there are 2 hours of solo, would I have to pay my instructor fee for these 2 hours now that I have my PPL? During my PPL training, I still had to add my instructor fee onto any solo hours I did so I’m wondering if that will still apply now.

Also would you recommend doing the A-UPRT somewhere before my CPL to reduce the hours building I need to do? The A-UPRT states that it’s 3 hours of flight time.

You'll have to pay the instructor for the night solo because you don't yet have a licence to fly at night. Definitely try to do the A-UPRT before the CPL if you can, the hours will count towards your CPL requirements.

For those you started their training before Brexit, that was what the CAA were allowing. Student would just resit their ME-IR Skills test and they get their CPL + ME-IR. However they have closed that route.

Yes, if you are dual licenced Ryanair would have more flexibility how they roster you. However it's their problem, how much is it going to cost you to help them resolve their problem? Friend of mine has dual licence but they only put the TR on one, so he doesn't get the extra pay for being able to fly both EI and UK.

I see, thank you once again for your help rudestuff, your knowledge has been invaluable to me

I wasn’t thinking of how they would roster me, I was thinking it would give me a bigger chance of landing an interview with them. On their cadet application page it says they only accept a limited number of people with a CAA licence.

Do you know which licence Ryanair put his TR on? And would that mean he would only be able to fly on 737 with the reg of his TR, so EI if it’s on his EASA and G if it’s on his UK CAA?

Can't really speak on modular training and what is the best, but I can provide some insight into conversion training to the UK as I have just been down the route myself.

For context, I did an ICAO CPL conversion to the UK and EASA.

The hours required for a conversion depends on who you go with for it. I really reccommend EFT based in Lee for this reason, as conversion training is their bread and butter. Super knowledgeable when it comes to this.

Based on having a license already on a conversion, it scraps any requirements for total time, or required hours for certain requirements (IFR hours, PIC hours, or whatever it says on the test forms). For you, probably makes not much of a difference, but for me it does as I did a integrated course for my ICAO license.

What does need to be done is a training proposal made by the ATO to the CAA, stating the training required for the conversion. This is done by an assessment of competency test done in a sim typically. Based on this sim and depending on who you do it with they will quote how many minimum hours of training required for test. For me, the IR training required was 4 hours in the sim and 2 hours in the aircraft. For the MEP/CPL it was 2 hours.

Most other ATO's will probably not provide this as it is a lot of effort and not really much gain. Stapleford have only one course they provide to students for conversions for this reason.

Other things you need to do is a third country ICAO license verification, where they check the license of your other country.

Just to let you know this process is not the quickest as approval of a training plan or verification (classic CAA) . Could be really quick, or could be really slow.

Any more questions let me know!

Rudestuff, I have come to the conclusion that if you stop replying to threads with this info, it is in fact due to the ato's hunting you down.

Your advice is spot on and i am currently formulating my entire plan on it.

I could be a 7 year old Korean kid, don't trust a word I say! But by all means consider it and double check any regulations and make sure it makes sense. If I'm off the air for more than a month then they've probably got me... 🤣

Can the MEP skills test not be combined with the MEIR, provided the required training for the MEP has been done prior to the MEIR test? Surely that will save you around £1k or so? Or do the CAA not allow the tests to be combined?

Hopefully someone could shed some light here for me, the caa can't! Have an easa fatpl licence with a valid type rating, also have a UK caa fatpl without the type rating or meir (not sure why the meir wasn't transferred across) but I have been offered a job with a UK airline and they can't proceed with tupe rating until I have an meir on it, anyone know what needs to be done, just can't find an answer