Mickey
The NPPL and the LAPL are simply a sham and the conversion to PPL is deliberately difficult. At the time of the announcement of the NPPL I had an angry one to one conversation with the then CAA gentleman who pioneered the NPPL with the Dept. of Transport on behalf of the CAA. Being pushed by me his explanation was this: the CAA had made a big mistake in simply taking on the JAR (at the expense of the UK/ICAO PPL) and without an alternative and was therefore left with a dilemma. The cost of producing and sponsoring legislation through parliament in both money and time is enormous. To correct the error and convince the D of T. required something different from the JAR PPL to be devised. Without a licence being something very different from the PPL the Dept. of Transport would not entertain it. So the NPPL was borne (assisted with the expertise of a pragmatic AOPA) The main benefit being more accessible to sporting pilots from other branches of flying, as intended and, as it has turned out, the benefits of the reduced medical. The NPPL restrictions though are artificial. The NPPL device quietened the gliding and other organisations which had lost the credits for its members to become a PPL. Gliding clubs for instance needed its members to become tug pilots. The CAA had got itself of the hook for the time being.
All this nonsense was then repeated by EASA who have copied it, in most part, including the reduced medical standard. The bureaucracy though could not justify a simple conversion process, for the NPPL/LAPL holder, to complete conversion to PPL by simply completing the differences training. Their paperwork was too difficult, or so they thought, and it wouldn't be politically correct to allow it.
BEagle's post above is a pathetic attempt to provide an acceptable logic where there is none.
Last edited by Fl1ingfrog; 17th Nov 2019 at 10:43.