What's an NPPL?

[Cron]

Would appreciate any info about this (up and coming?) licence

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London Tower this is Skyflash...

[Release]

It's a 'lightweight' recreational PPL, designed to be quicker, easier and cheaper to complete. For a description of it, and the limitations, check out

http://www.caa.co.uk/news/section_one/mn_pr976533853.html

[StrateandLevel]

Once upon a time there was a PPL syllabus produced by AOPA. Its origins were back in the RAF's Central Flying School circa 1950 as the basic piston engine pilot training syllabus.

In the late 1980s AOPA intent on expansion were actively campaigning to get the PPL into JAR-FCL as the first module in the ATPL chain, and so the JAR-FCL PPL syllabus was born. The syllabus is the AOPA syllabus largely unchanged, except that some committee has added another 5 hours.

By 1999 AOPA's plans of expansionism had not materialised, they had become disenchanted with both the JAA and the CAA, so they invented the NPPL. Strangely the syllabus is little different from any that has gone before. By knocking 15 minutes of each exercise you can save 25% of the time and complete it in 30 hours. The CAA has insisted the skill test be extra, so 32 hours it is, a bargain at half the price.

Now who is fooling who?

The exams will be JAA; the instructors will be JAA; the examiners will be JAA. Different courses based upon an almost identical syllabus with different expereience requirements. A two tier licensing system run by two different organisations with different re-validation systems. The complexities of JAR-FCL pail into insignificance.

['I' in the sky]

So having read the web page referred to by Release, exactly what restrictions apply to the NPPL that do not in practical terms already apply to a real PPL without night/IMC ratings and differences training ?

[Cron]

Thanks Straightanlevel. I see .....

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London Tower this is Skyflash...