PPL self study materials question

Yes it does

Where does it specify x hours at an approved school?

For the IR, and the CPL, EASA specifies x hours in your bum (personal attendance in a classroom). Then various ground school outfits got various “equivalence” concessions for home study, and obviously the idea was to maximise this portion, but you still had to physically travel to say CATS and sit there for x hours.

For the PPL, you should not have to sit anywhere for x hours, although Brussels could never actually stop a given country from operating that internally; it is below the radar.

Peter wrote:

Where does it specify x hours at an approved school?

I have not said anything at all about x. I have just said that the course has to be done at an approved school (which should be clear from my quote of FCL.210 above) and that the competent authority must approve of the course plan – which would includes some value of your x. A school can have a distance course where most of the hours can be done at home. Interestingly, at an ATO at least 10% of the hours must be “in your bum” (ref. ORA.ATO.605) but there does not seem to be a corresponding requirement for DTOs.

A school can have a distance course where most of the hours can be done at home

That, of course, can mean absolutely anything, including no defined ground school tuition at all – because you have no idea what someone does at home.

Is there any benefit for a school which does only he PPL, to be an ATO, over a DTO?

Peter wrote:

Is there any benefit for a school which does only he PPL, to be an ATO, over a DTO?

Not sure of any – I think that officially ATO/DTO difference is that ATO can also do CPL/ATPL/IR/TR.

Peter wrote:

Is there any benefit for a school which does only he PPL, to be an ATO, over a DTO?

For “ordinary” PPL/LAPL training only, none as far as I know. The only drawback is that a DTO can only train for a few ratings. For powered airplanes they are night, aerobatics, mountain, glider towing, banner towing, SEP (land and sea) and TMG.

EASA DTO can also train for IMCR/IRR as well, altough it’s only useful in UK airspace on UK papers…

PS: IMCR/IRR can be done by freelance instructor in owner aircraft where none of them is “attached to ATO/DTO”, what I call a bloody damn good IFR rating if you pick a proper IRI who teach it and understand CAS/OCAS, you get better value for money going with someone who go from grass strips under striaght into 2km & OVC006 for 2h session on GPS and back on ILS/GPS with IFR/VFR mix, you no longer a virgin

Ibra wrote:

EASA DTO can also train for IMCR/IRR as well, altough it’s only useful in UK airspace on UK papers…

I’m sure a UK based one can. But a non-UK based one? I haven’t seen any mention of that in the Air crew regulation. We all know that the IR(R) is a national UK thing that the EU grudgingly accepted.

Airborne_Again wrote:

But a non-UK based one?

Maybe history now but 2 in Spain (Austro/CAA), 3 in Florida (CAA), 1 in France (DGAC) but all had CAA IRE…not sure if it’s still the case now

Ibra wrote:

all had CAA IRE

That’s the thing, isn’t it?