Starting off

[Mairead]

Hi I'm new to the forum - Seriously considering taking up flying lessons but before rushing into spending money on trial flights etc, wanted to get your take on it.

Anybody recommend any good schools/clubs near London to learn (I think Biggin Hill or Elstree are the nearest 2)?

thanks

[Aussie Andy]

British Airways Flying Club at Wycombe (www.bafc.co.uk) is excellent.

Andy

[Pilotdom]

I would say the first thing you should do is go and get a class 2 medical. This way you will know you are medicaly fit to fly. Also it will dtermine if you go for a PPL or an NPPL. It will also mean if there is anything wrong, you wont waste money on flight training.

[BackPacker]

Nope. First thing you should do is ask yourself the question "why do I want to fly?"

Flying is not a hobby you pick up and abandon after a brief period without regret. The costs involved are simply too high. Particularly if you go for the Golden Standard, the PPL: 45 flight hours, 25 of which with instructor, seven ground exams, one R/T practical and one skills test, and a JAA Class 2 medical are what's required. Figure 8000 UKP at least.

A PPL is great if you want to fly powered aircraft, with passengers, internationally, or if you want to go commercial. You can add ratings and endorsements to it like multi-engine, instrument, floatplanes, complex, high-performance and such so it's the most versatile of all the licenses you can get as a private pilot. But there are other licenses you can consider, for which the training is far less expensive:

- If you want to remain in the UK, outside of controlled airspace, in good weather, consider an NPPL instead. Less hours requirements, less medical requirements.
- If you only want to fly yourself or with one passenger, consider microlights & its associated licenses.
- If your interest is with battling it out with the elements up there, consider gliders instead. Or deltas or parapente. Great fun but a different license required.
- If your interest is in the aircraft structure & systems, then get an NPPL or PPL as appropriate, then join the PFA and build yourself an aircraft
- If all you want is a cheap and fast way to transport yourself to another place, fly commercially.

The decision you make now as to where to start flying training, and particularly on what sort of plane to train, to what syllabus and with which medical, will greatly influence the type of flying you're going to do in the future, and the costs associated with that hobby. So before you commit serious money think about what you want to achieve.

A trial lesson, by the way, may cost 100 quid or so. That's not what I call "serious money". If you consider it serious money, better not start flying altogether. It'll be too expensive.

[Captain Smithy]

Yup, I would have to agree with BackPacker.

If you want to make a career of flying (i.e. instruction or commercial) then go for the JAR PPL.

If you're looking to fly purely as a hobby though I would recommend the NPPL, it is much cheaper, less training is required and the medical requirements are less stringent too... unless you're looking at Multi-Engine or Instrument Ratings, in which case the JAR PPL is again the one to go for.

What I would recommend is search on the net (or even here on Proon) for schools/clubs in your area, get their contact details and get in touch with them. It's always best to have a chat first before jumping into anything.

You're doing the right thing by stopping by and asking for advice. Unfortunately I'm not too clued up about any clubs/schools in England but like I say try a search here on Proon and see.

I went out and visited my flying club before I made the decision to start training there, I was glad I did because I found out that the club has an excellent reputation and the instructors there are excellent, that's why I have decided to learn there. Try it yourself and good luck with things!;)

Cheers

Smithy

[muggins]

once you have decided which licence to go for, and chosen your training org, the main bit of advice is never pay up front.

If you have the money, put it into an interest paying account and draw it off as you pay per lesson. There are too many stories of students paying thousands of pounds for training packages only to lose it when the school folds.

[Mairead]

Thanks for all the replies and private messages - very helpful. Think I will go for PPL as I am from Ireland and family lives near Weston airstrip in Kildare so useful to have it if I wanted to fly there.

Will go for medical once have done a trial flight (trial flight being more appealing than medical) and I will have a better idea if flying is something I like or just think I would like.

Anybody know the Alouette club in Biggin Hill? Thoughts on them?

[thomasp]

- If you want to remain in the UK, outside of controlled airspace, in good weather, consider an NPPL instead. Less hours requirements, less medical requirements.

Could you elaborate on this point? Does this mean that if there's a flying school based at an "international" airport (eg: East Midlands) you can't fly there under an NPPL. I'm not 100% sure on the meaning of "controlled airspace" though, so sorry if the previous question is rubbish!

I'm in the same situation as the original poster and am slowly thinking about learning to fly (mainly due to lack of cash at the moment!). I've been up as a passenger in PA28s and C152/172s and would like to get a PPL, but don't want to go commercial.

[Whirlybird]

You can certainly fly in controlled airspace with an NPPL. You just can't fly at night or overseas, or add an IMC to it. As for the hours requirement, if you're an average student there's probably little difference in reality as to how long it'll take you. Which just leaves the medical requirements being different.

The trouble with thinking it all out in advance is that flying changes you. What you think you want now may not be what you want after a trial lesson, and not at all what you want after you've got your PPL. There's a fair number of us on here who just started out to see what flying was like, liked it and got a PPL, then liked it so much we considered - and went for - a change of career. So unless you know for certain that won't happen, it's worth keeping your options open. Which might mean going for a PPL rather than the NPPL, though I think you can upgrade later if you want...not quite sure about that.

[thomasp]

You can certainly fly in controlled airspace with an NPPL. You just can't fly at night or overseas, or add an IMC to it. As for the hours requirement, if you're an average student there's probably little difference in reality as to how long it'll take you. Which just leaves the medical requirements being different.

Are there any key differences - particularly around eyesight? I need glasses to drive (am short sighted), so does this limit me in any way?

I assume to get night rated you'd need to first upgrade to a PPL

The trouble with thinking it all out in advance is that flying changes you. What you think you want now may not be what you want after a trial lesson, and not at all what you want after you've got your PPL. There's a fair number of us on here who just started out to see what flying was like, liked it and got a PPL, then liked it so much we considered - and went for - a change of career. So unless you know for certain that won't happen, it's worth keeping your options open. Which might mean going for a PPL rather than the NPPL, though I think you can upgrade later if you want...not quite sure about that.

I'm studying Aeronautical Engineering at university, so ideally would like to go into something involving planes as a career (not really sure what though!!), but after some work experience have found that commercial flying really isn't for me.


If there's any good websites out there that clearly state the differences and requirements for PPL and NPPL, preferably in idiot-speak ;), they'd be much appreciated!

[Dysonsphere]

1 annoying differance is the min visabilty youre allowed to fly in must be at least 10km for the NPPL but i have a feeling a lot of NPPL use the PPL min vis reqs

[BackPacker]

thomasp, you got me there. What I think, but I'm not sure, is that for the NPPL a radio license is optional, but for the PPL it is mandatory. And a radio license is what's required for flying in controlled airspace.

But I'm not from the UK so my knowledge of the precise privileges of the UK NPPL is not a lot. I checked my air law book and it's not sufficiently clear on this issue to be sure. Anybody else knows how this works?

I did find that for the NPPL the min viz is 10 km inside controlled airspace, and 5 km outside controlled airspace. That's more than the VMC minima for a PPL.