Originally Posted by
tangovictor
the nppl m is considerably cheaper than ppl, and once passed the hire of a fixed wing u/l or associated running costs should you purchase a machine, say a Eurostar etc, is less than half , check it out,
I can see why the NPPL would appeal to microlight pilots. For fixed-wing flying, however, it seems to me that there are only cost savings to be made if
(a) you qualify in close to the minimum 32 hours, or
(b) you fly fewer than 12 hours per year post-qualification
Otherwise I would think that the costs are quite similar, aren't they? I appreciate that the NPPL does not require regular medical examinations, but compared to air-time I would think that an JAR Class-2 medical is not that expensive.
It also confuses me enormously that, according to the NPPL web site, NPPL holders can upgrade to JAR-FCL PPL with a credit of 30 hours. Suppose it takes (say) 40 hours to get to NPPL qualifying standard, what happens to the 10 `surplus' hours? The letter of the law seems to suggest that a person who has flown 40 hours and has an NPPL will have to fly _more_ to qualify for the JAR-FCL PPL than a person who has no licence! Is this just one of those the-law-is-an-ass situations?
I am nowhere near being able to qualify for either licence, but I'd like to make sure that I don't make a decision to commits me to one or the other without fully understanding the implications.