Sewing Machine Man,
I am a little bothered by your reply as it seems to imply (or maybe I have inferred) that there is an option to charge VAT.
If your turnover/sales are over a certain amount (£60k), you must register for VAT. You can register for VAT voluntarily if your turnover is less than that and it is acceptable to do this if you can reclaim initial business set-up costs (i.e. training).
It is a little erroneous to talk about VAT on children's clothing since we are not talking about children's clothing here on rotorheads. Anyone setting up as a freelance pilot will be making VAT-able supplies. The supply is VAT-able whatever; it's just that under a certian limit, HMR&C don't mandate that you account for it.
Strictly speaking, there is VAT on children's clothes just as there is VAT on food and books. It's just that the rate of VAT is zero. This is different to items that are exempt or outside the scope of VAT. You have to make sure that you account for your zero-rated supplies differently to your exempt supplies. The reason for this is that it only requires the Chancellor's budget to raise the rate of VAT on these items; the exempt items would require an Act of Parliament to change.
I don't wish to obfuscate the issue but I don't want anyone to think that there is an option to charge VAT - there isn't in this context (unless you don't want to register and won't earn more than £60,000).
I would also add that you can only reclaim VAT on going back 6 months for services (which is what training is classified as) and 3 years for goods (i.e. your Pooley's CRP-5) from when you register. If you do a PPL and then decide you want to go CPL, then you won't get the VAT back on the PPL unless you register within 6 months and can prove that CPL was your intention all along. Whether you get that one past the VATman is down to the individual inspector.
Cheers
Whirls