Starlionblue wrote:Typically the EASA ATPL exams take half a year of full time study from start to finish. And that's if you hit the books hard and keep at it. As mentioned above, they're not a trivial undertaking. It is a lot of material to cover.
Not to mention that upwards of a 3rd of all questions don't even test your theoretical knowledge, but rather your ability to read the question correctly. A significant amount of them were even completely wrong, or had multiple correct answers.
Starlionblue wrote:However when I did my EASA ATPLs a few years ago there were a bunch of guys with FAA ATPs and thousands of hours of turbine command time who had to take all 14 exams because their company aircraft were registered in the EU.
If memory serves you'll be exempt from the formal lesson requirements (four weeks of classroom work) for the exams but it is probably worth doing that anyway. Makes passing way easier. I recommend Bristol Ground School but there are other good ones.
When I did them we also had a bunch of FAA ATPs doing their conversions, typically people who did the training in the US, and had been duped into thinking that the ATPL exams was only a trivial bit of paperwork that didn't require any preparation. They consistently failed the first attempts and ended up doing the full 6-9 month study anyway.