First, best of luck in your PPL course and I hope that you enjoy it. As you probably know, there is no formal aerobatics rating, but you can do the AOPA certificate, details of which are quite easy to find on the web. It takes about 10 hours and involves advanced steep turns, recoveries from vertical and other extreme attitudes, stall and spin training, and then the basic rolling and looping and stall turn manoeuvres.
There is no reason why you cannot include some aerobatic training in your PPL, if you have the time and inclination to do so. If your instructor likes aeros, and you are in the right machine, you might find yourself rewarded for a good lesson or cheered up after a bad one with a bit of gentle hooting and roaring.
It goes without saying that you shouldn't attempt any aerobatic manoeuvre on your own unless you have been taught it and cleared to perform it by a specialist aerobatic instructor and are flying an aircraft built and certified for aerobatics, operating within that aircraft's particular stress limits. This rules out most of the commonly available GA trainer-tourers: none of the PA 28s are aerobatic and, of the Cessnas, only the comparatively rare C150 Aerobat is, dohhh, aerobatic.
If you have not yet chosen your PPL school, you could look out for one of the few that has available for training and rental aircraft such as Slingsby Firefly, Beagle Pup, Bulldog, some variants of Robin, and Cessna aerobats. There may be one or two lurking somewhere that will teach ab initio on Citabrias or Decathlons, which would kill two birds with one stone by sorting out your tailwheel training at the same time, bearing in mind that if you continue your interest in aeros after you obtain your licence, most aerobatic machines are tailwheelers . Sherburn in Elmet even has a Cap 10b, a most excellent machine (not biased at all) for a surprisingly cheap rate, but that's in Yorkshire and I'm not sure what's available at the Scottish clubs. All of these aircraft tend to be more expensive to fly than the usual non-aerobatic trainers, although you may think the extra expense worthwhile, particularly as you may may find the usual flying club aircraft a tad pedestrian after flipping about in Bulldogs and Tutors. Once again, best of luck and have fun.
Last edited by FNG; 18th December 2003 at 22:50.