PPL Air Law

[steejk]

Hi,

I've been studying for the air law exam and have found a couple of things confusing as they seem to differ from different sources.

1. If a light goes out in flight? (I thought you must land asap but some places say that with some lights you don't have to, or in day time you don't)

2. Changing a flight plan or stopping one if landing at different aerodrome. (I think its different for IFR and VFR, but with VFR should you re-submit a FP or contact ATC? - does it differ with how late you want to change? and if landing at a different place should you cancel within 30 or 45 mins?)

Finally I can't seem to find anywhere saying how long parts of the PPL/NPPL are valid for and whether this will change with the new EASA licence.

Any help would be appreciated,

steejk

[thing]

I can't remember any questions about flight plans in the Air Law, that's not to say there aren't any of course...............

By lights do you mean nav/strobe lights? How would you know if they had gone out?

[RTN11]

1. depends on the lights. If the nav lights go out, don't need them during day ops anyway, continue flight as normal.

2. VFR you don't often file a flight plan unless crossing an international border. If you have, and you want to change plan you can cancel and resubmit, or change as you go. Really depends on the circumstances.

A PPL is valid for 5 years, this is a paperwork thing only and I don't think it will change with EASA.

You have a rating to fly on that licence. This will be a Single Engine Piston (Land) rating - SEP(Land). This is valid for two years. You can keep this going by flying experience alone with 12 hours in the last 12 months of the rating, one of which must be with an instructor. If the instructor is happy, an examiner will sign your licence for another two years. If you do not meet the experience requirements, it's a proficiency check with an examiner which is a bit different from a full flight test.

You could then add a multi engine rating, IMC rating, any rating really. They will all have different periods of validity, and different requirements to keep them current. The licence itself will still need to be renewed every 5 years.

[steejk]

Thanks for the replies,

According to the confuser if the anti-collision light fails (I have no idea how you would tell...) you can carry on in day time.

[mrmum]

A JAA-PPL has an expiry date of 5 years from the date of the skills test.
A NPPL is issued for life
A pre-JAA UK PPL is also a lifetime licence (unless you go back a lot of decades, when I believe they were given a finite life)
EASA PPLs will be lifetime licences again when they get round to issuing them in July. So, if you have a JAA-PPL, you should only need to renew it once after April, when it will become an EASA PPL.

[RTN11]

According to the confuser if the anti-collision light fails (I have no idea how you would tell...) you can carry on in day time.

Yep, that's the type of question they will ask, if x light fails, can you continue. You won't be asked how you would identify the failure.

In reality, when you switch electrics on and off you will likely see a jump on the ammeter. This is a good indication if things like pitot heat are working, and when strobes are on the needle will often flicker up and down. This doesn't work if only one light has failed, you will still get a jump as the other lights go on, but it's better than nothing.

Also, in a C172 the Nav Lights are positioned such that at night you can see they are on. This may be true for other aircraft too.