MetalGear

Thanks for your reply everyone

That cleared the air regarding a lot of doubts I had .

While I dont plan on doing a rating until the day I have a solid job offer , i was just taking a look at what are the options out there and comparing notes with my friends who are presently employed with the airlines ( like IndiGo ) and those who decide to get a self sponsored type rating without job offers .

At IndiGo they do around 80 hours on a FFS / Level D A320 sim before being allowed to actually fly the airplane
Type ratings are usually done at CAE Madrid or CAE Kuala Lumpur
One of the reasons for such high time on the sims is because the Jet Induction / Multi Crew training is also conducted on the A320 sim


@bcpilot

You seem to have a lot knowledge when it comes to the DGCA .

I agree with this statement . But if you look at the DGCA requirements even if I had 1500 hours or 3000 hours of Multi Engine Piston time I would still be required to undergo the same amount of training as someone with 250 hours.........

The only way around this would be if I had Jet engined experience........

I was having a chat with a friend of mine who was with me in flight school in florida .
He was of the opinion that Cockpit4u in Berlin was the best place to get a type rating . They were charging roughly 30,000 USD for an A320 type that meets the Indian DGCA requirement .

I asked what difference would it make whether you went to Cockpit4u or some TRTO in the US . Higher Power Aviation on the other hand was quoting 21000 USD for the same requirements. At both places you would need the same number of simulator and ground school hours in order to meet the DGCA requirements . The only difference being the quality of the instructor which usually has nothing to do with the TRTO..........
He was of the opinion that somehow the European TRTO's are much better because Europe teaches more theory at the CPL / ATPL level

The other issue I have seen is among those who decide to self sponsor a type rating without a job offer at the end .
When the reach the airline written test / interview stage they complain that the systems questions being asked are too hard to answer.......
This has spurned another Industry where present airline captains conduct coaching classes for self type rated pilots to help them at airline exams / interviews.....

I dont know what they teach at type rating school......But there seems to be huge disconnect between what the school teaches and what the airline expects the candidates to know.....

An e.g. I would like to point out is back in Feb 2012 IndiGo decided to conduct an exam for only A320 type rated candidates . 150 appeared . I dont know how many passed through the written exam but only 8 candidates finally managed to pass the Interview

One of the 8 who got through was a friend of mine who had a little over 1500 hours of experience working as a flight instructor . He had done his rating from Higher Power Aviation .

My next question is which do you think is better when it comes to knowing the aircraft systems very well ?

a) A multiple choice written exam before commencing of simulator training ?

or

b) An Oral exam with an FAA examiner after all the ground school and sim training ?

I am going with option b)

Like I said earlier I dont plan on doing a type rating unless I have a solid job to go to at the end . But If had a choice of choosing the TRTO I would definitely choose one in the US and get the type rating endorsed on both my FAA License and DGCA license as well .

Here is another info .

Air India has a simulator training training centre in Hyderabad India . It called CTE or Central Training Establishment .

At present they primarily do training for the A320 fleet . They train newly recruited first officers for about 6 months in order to undergo the A320 type rating .
I am not sure how true this is but its said that they receive around 200 hours of training on the FFS / Level D A320 sim

It also informally called the Central Torture Establishment