Originally Posted by
what next
And where exactly would that be?
AFAIK, the UK has the same 500ft rule than the rest of the world. And with the license gone, the best practice in forced landings seems rather useless to me.
Mind you, even as an instructor I am only allowed to descend below 500ft for a PFL if my student has no license yet. Once he has been issued his PPL, 500ft is the lowest I am allowed to let him descend. I don't know how it is in the UK, but here in Germany you can be 100 percent certain that somebody will write down your registration and call the police. An instructor colleague of mine once made a PFL over a gliding site (not in use at the time) with a PPL holder during one of these JAR-FCL mandatory training flights and got prompty reported and fined for that...
Fortunately, the UK is rather more sane and rational than this. The rule is 500ft minimum separation from any person, vessel, or manmade structure (rather than 500ft height, which would be incredibly restrictive). You can fly at 1ft, surrounded by hedges, over an empty beach, etc. and that is fine.
The military here work to I think 250ft, or 125ft in designated low flying areas.
It's really not hard to find plenty of space to practice 500ft msd PFLs.
G