I don't think anyone wanted the current battle, mentioned by BEagle,but you cannot expect an organisation not to react when its income stream is directly threatened.
Anyway, back to how some good may come of it. The BMAA has a good training and examining infrastructure and, as aresult of the PFA action, is currently holding a ballot to seek approval for administering Permit aircraft above 450kg.
The current BMAA NPPL training regime could also easily be adapted to extend to this class. The schools are there, the training regime is there and I suspect the customers are there.
At the moment it is easy to go from NPPL microlight to NPPL SEP with a credit for the microlight training hours. But you cannot credit the NPPL SEP hours to JAR if they were not done at a licenced field. With EASA curently encouraging the setting up of Euro wide NPPL ratings (to be called RPPL) the relaxation of the licenced field requirement is something that may well happen any way and would be good news for those wanting to use this training route and progress further.
Once the RPPLs are established, it is envisaged that countries will accept each others RPPL holders, as is the case with microlight pilots, but not, at present, the case for GA NPPLs.
Last edited by bar shaker; 12th Mar 2005 at 11:00.