Mooney_Driver wrote:
Do you need a 2nd 8.33 radio for part NCO? Not sure about this.
You most emphatically don’t unless it’s required for the aircraft certification. (Unfortunately some manufacturers, Diamond I believe, has included a 2nd COM for no apparent reason.)
You can read the full story about IFR (and VFR) equipment carriage in my article here.
Two radios not needed unless it is on the TC.
However, even if two were needed for all IFR, I am sure this would stop practically nobody getting an IR.
Re the Euro ATPL, you can’t do it via a course of study and flight training. The furthest you can do is a CPL/IR, although probably you could do an ATPL in a full motion sim, for the cost of 500hrs in one of those – roughly €1M.
Has the frozen ATPL disappeared then?
In my airline career we forked out some money, took a 3 month course covering different topics, passed the related exams, and then were put on the „frozen ATPL“ status. Working as a F/O required the usual B/IFR (CPL/IR) and the frozen ATPL.
1500 flight hours later one usually flew an additional program in the sim, got the ATPL unfrozen, and the coveted ATPL in his licence 
I posted it “above”. The lack of an “ATP” course of study has led to the heavy emotional and political (revenue generation) attachment to the IR, which is why we have ended up with a “hard to get” IR.
Peter wrote:
I posted it “above”. The lack of an “ATP” course of study has led to the heavy emotional and political (revenue generation) attachment to the IR, which is why we have ended up with a “hard to get” IR.
What about that 2400-page manual and 13 exams?
Peter wrote:
The lack of an “ATP” course of study has led to the heavy emotional and political (revenue generation) attachment to the IR, which is why we have ended up with a “hard to get” IR.
I don’t understand that either. Lots and lots of schools offer ATP “courses of study”.
Yes; they call it that, because it sounds better. But the actual qualification, ex-FTO, is only an ICAO CPL/IR.
The sitting of the 14 “ATPL” exams entitles you to a (more or less) automatic conversion of this CPL/IR to an ICAO ATPL.
If you did the CPL and IR separately i.e. each with its own exams (13+7) – some reading here – then you also get an ICAO CPL/IR but it will never be convertible to an ATPL as described above. It is a dead-end route which a number of people have done…
Like I say, this is what had partly led to the difficult IR situation in Europe: the hardest course of study is the IR. The CPL is a bit of easy VFR flying. Whereas in the US the hardest course of study is the ATP. Actually the CFII is harder but that’s another topic.
Peter wrote:
Like I say, this is what had partly led to the difficult IR situation in Europe: the hardest course of study is the IR. The CPL is a bit of easy VFR flying. Whereas in the US the hardest course of study is the ATP.
This still doesn’t make sense. The EU ATPL study course includes both the CPL and the IR TK – and more – so how can the IR be harder than the ATPL?
even taken separately as I did, I can assure you that the theoretical ATPL was as demanding as the IR, probably more so just by the sheer volume of subjects…
I think Peter mean the practical part.
