The insurance for the group shared micro requires that I do 5 hours conversion with an existing group member.
I agree with Genghis here. The insurance may well require 5 hours with an existing group member, but the law requires differences training (and a signoff) from a microlight instructor. And an instructor can't sign you off until you have a piece of paper for him to put his signature on. Also known as your license.
So I guess the proper order would be:
- PPL SEP(A) skills test, send the whole lot to the CAA and wait for your license.
- Get differences training and a signoff from a qualified microlight instructor. (Logged as Pu/t, most likely)
- Fly five hours with an experienced group member as passenger. (Logged as P1)
If you expect that the differences training is going to take a lot of work (several hours) then I guess you can do some of that training before you do the PPL SEP(A) skills test or before you have your license in hand. But if your microlight is a three axis just like the airplane you flew for SEP(A), then I think all that would be required is to get used to the much lower inertia of the thing (and possibly different control forces, location of switches, different picture out the cockpit and different checklists). Maybe two hours should do the trick. Why get into muddy legal waters over just two hours? (Have to tell you that I've never converted my SEP(A) to SEP(M), so this two hours estimate is speculation.)
If the microlight is a weightshift, that's a different matter of course.
Also check the insurance. Do they really require 5 hours with a group member *in addition* to the instructor giving you a microlight sign-off, or do they require 5 hours with a group member if somebody who already holds a microlight license, but flew another type, wants to start flying this one? I would assume that if a microlight instructor signs you off, then that should be good enough for the insurance.
which I will maintain while flying a microlight
You sure this is a good idea? This means that you've got to rent a SEP(A) for 12 hours minimum, one of which is with an instructor, every two years, while you can possibly fly your own microlight for maybe 50 hours with the same amount of money. It is probably cheaper to let the SEP(A) get out of currency, and do a check flight with an examiner if you ever want to get back into SEP(A) flying.