tmo wrote:
Having said that, what is the most painless (and convenient) way to pass the 13 ATPL exams in the EU (including the required ATO part)?I seem to recall Loco did his in Sweden, how did you go about yours, Emir? Anyone else care to share?
No exam was spectacularly hard but Mass & Balance and General Navigation are pretty time constrained. I barely finished those two exams on time. Others were much more relaxed and usually I was completing them between 50% and 75% of allowed time. Learning wise, a lot of stuff is not much useful for flying and you just have to push yourself to read it and memorize it. However, there’s bunch of stuff that’s known from previous flying experience and you just know it without need to re-learn.
So, the most convenient way is to apply for online course (some provide training materials, some not – you have to obtain it from some source) and get their approval for attending the exams.
I applied to ATO in Croatia that offers modular approach – 6+6 subjects based on Bristol Ground School materials and approved by Croatian CAA. After finishing studying first 6 subjects you can attend exams for these. So I started late April, passing one by one internal online tests in ATO (a lot of progress tests and camera supervised final exams) and first week of July I attended (and passed) first 6 exams at Agency. After that I continue passing internal exams for the rest subjects and this week passed the rest of the exams.
@Emir wrote:
A bit more than 5 months since I applied at ATO for ATPL theory, as of today I passed all 12 exams (Communications was recognized from previous IR training). I did it in two blocks – 6 exams beginning of July and 6 this week.
Congratulations! It is a big achievement.
May I ask what you need the ATPL theory for?
May I ask what you need the ATPL theory for?
For a crazy challenge I accepted 
a friend of mine called me to join him as an FO at SAAB 340.
That sounds very exciting! Is it private or you’re getting a ‘job’?
I am very familar with the exams But the Euro CPL flying is some dual VFR stuff, unlike the much harder FAA CPL flying.
So the Euro CPL fills your head with completely useless theory, but doesn’t actually show you can fly any better than a brand new PPL. Fantastic. I’ll try not to bear that in mind next time I fly RYR or EZY.
Also, more congrats to Emir. I would never have the patience.
loco wrote:
That sounds very exciting! Is it private or you’re getting a ‘job’?
Getting a ‘job’ at small cargo company.
The CPL flying training and exam in Europe, certainly in France, is based on you can already fly in VFR and probably under IFR so there is no reason to re visit that.
They tend to concentrate more on the commercial aspects, as you would perhaps expect. Eg emergency measures with passengers on board. Decision making if your passenger throws up all over your G1000 and everything fries. Weather and technical diversions and whatever else an instructor or examiner can conjure up from a warped imagination.🙂
They often adapt previous BEA scenarios.
Some find it easy others find it difficult to analyse problems and decide what to do about them whilst flying the plane.
So the Euro CPL fills your head with completely useless theory, but doesn’t actually show you can fly any better than a brand new PPL. Fantastic. I’ll try not to bear that in mind next time I fly RYR or EZY.
Yes, and the system hangs together because while most of the cadets can barely fly and indeed 99% have zero interest in flying a plane like we fly, they all go through a TR course where they teach them what to do, and then they spend hundreds of hours with an experienced TR examiner/training guy in the LHS, and he/she will make sure the plane doesn’t get crashed. All the planning is done for them, so never having flown to Le Touquet doesn’t matter.
Emir is following some other pipeline though, but under the Euro system he still had to suffer the same “pipeline input filter” despite his vast experience. He has an amazing appetite for punishment I have an FAA CPL/IR and to do this in the US I would just need to add ME to both of these, pass the ATP written, ATP checkride (which is hard – 50ft tolerance for example) and then do a TR course. The ATP is harder though nowadays.
The thing is that not every CPL or ATPL qualified pilot is employable. That is a totally different filter.
