I have been living in Germany a couple years. I have an FAA CPL with instrument, and would like to get an EASA private with instrument and night.
I have read through BASA, and since I have more than 50 hours of IFR, it looks like all I would need is an oral and 2 checkrides.
I am curious if anyone has done this in Germany and has any advice and tips? Were there any complications? Anything I should be aware of?
Also, if anyone knows of an instructor/club/school in the Munich area who has already done this and could help me prepare for the checkride and oral, I would appreciate it!
How good is your German? Since you will have to get a German issued EASA license from scratch, there will be quite a bit of paperwork you will need to present to the LBA, including ZÜP, driving license register extract (if you have a German pilot license), medical, first aid course, etc. Might be difficult if you don’t speak German well.
The checkrides and the oral for the IR might also have to be completed in German. Not sure.
boscomantico wrote:
How good is your German?
Thanks, that is good to know. My German is okay. Probably not good enough for an exam (B1 level, so good enough for permanent residency!). I’ll have to talk to an instructor or examiner I guess to see if it is good enough.
Since you will have to get a German issued EASA license from scratch…
Could you mention the specific German law requiring this?
Well, I was thinking that if one wants to German pilot license, be it as a new pilot or be it as someone converting an FAA license, you still have to hand in all the same paperwork. Maybe yes, maybe no indeed. Here is the form of the LBA (they actually translated it into English) to apply for the issuance of a pilot license in accordance with U.S.-EU TIP-L. It is not entirely clear what will have to be provided or not (see note “Any other documents as requested by the AA”).
I believe BASA is standard across EASA-land, although no doubt every country will tweak it.
For my BASA PPL in France, I needed both medicals (EASA + FAA), my FAA license, an FAA confirmation of the validity of same (from the FAA website), plus the completed application form. It was rumoured that I’d also need a copy of my current BFR, though I didn’t supply it and nobody asked.
Then you also need to do a skills test – NOT a PPL checkride, which isn’t the same thing. That was one of the obstacles I ran into.
My biggest problem was that the local DGAC office had never done one before and didn’t know how to do it. Once it got transferred to another office everything went smoothly.
Just started working on my BASA IR so I’m still waiting to see how that works out.
johnh wrote:
Then you also need to do a skills test – NOT a PPL checkride, which isn’t the same thing. That was one of the obstacles I ran into.
Okay, thanks, that is good to know! I also would like to not be the first person to do this at my office, haha. I was thinking of using Austria as the SOLI, since I hear that Germany (and France) are not that easy to do this.
johnh wrote:
Just started working on my BASA IR so I’m still waiting to see how that works out.
Please reply here and let me know how this goes!
What does he do? He used to post here.
He can do the conversion/exam flights.
