Originally Posted by
homeguard
M & M.......
You both sound like you weren't around at the birth of the NPPL and perhaps remain unaware of the angry debates surrounding the onset of JAA and therefore the true purpose of the NPPL. The advantages with regard to costs are different from what you both appear to understand.
I've been a professional pilot for a quarter of a century, an instructor for nearly two decades and was quite definitely there at the birth of the JAA. I am currently instructing at an FTO that covers all flying training from trial lessons, through PPL, CPL, IR and MCC as well as FIC.
That, good sir, is the risk you take when you assume and patronise.
The fact that I disagree with you (and I'm not alone here) does not make me wrong - just of a different opinion. In my opinion, mountains are being made from one smallish mole hill in complaining about the restrictions on the NPPL.
To discount the value of the extra 13 hours is to miss the point that when you are at the bottom end of the experience curve then ANY extra experience is disproportionately valuable. After all, if experience doesn't matter, why does the CPL set a minimum experience level before a student may commence CPL training?
The JAA PPL is both a licence in it's own right (for those who only want to go that far) and a stepping stone to additional ratings and a CPL (for those who want to make a career from aviation). It sets higher experience requirements because, in all honesty, that extra experience is essential when moving forward to those additional ratings.
If, as is claimed, few NPPLs get by with the minimum hours then choosing an NPPL over a JAA PPL in order to save a few quid is an error of judgement. If it's going to take them 40+ hours then they may as well go for the JAA version and avoid being restricted. You also then may add an IMC, Night or even instrument rating. The extra experience gained from the JAA PPL is very useful when working towards those additional ratings.
No such ratings are available under the NPPL scheme - a fact which NPPL holders must accept as the trade off for holding the licence that they do.
30 hours of the NPPL training can be carried forward towards the JAA PPL, so an upgrade only incurs the loss of 2 hours training and should thus be a straightforward process. However, if the NPPL student takes more than 32 hours to achieve the required standard, then that surely makes the case for the value of the extra 13 hours in the JAA syllabus.
As I've said previously, my sympathies go to anyone who is limited to NPPL for medical reasons - but I suspect that if this is the case then they would have failed to pass the medical for the old UK CAA PPL, so the NPPL does them a favour. However, if you choose the NPPL for purely economic reasons then you quite literally get what you pay for.