ATC Basic
 

Hi everybody, I'm new here so allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ben, I'm 22, I live in Somerset. I am a 3-axis microlight pilot flying my Xair 582 out of Brownshutters Farm near Bath and have been working as an ATSA and Operations Assistant for the past 3 and a half years. My current employers have been kind enough to fund my ATC basic and ADV course at Cwmbran starting next month. My boss believes I may be able to get dispensation from the Met and Nav aspects of the basic course due to me holding my NPPL(M) and he's asked me to find out whether this is the case. I have contacted my old instructor and he is going to get back to me but I just wondered if anybody on here (I've been a lurker for quite some time) knew where I stood. It's a long shot I know but no harm in asking.

Cheers,
Ben.

Congratulations! First, on taking a step on the career ladder and second, on getting someone else to pay for it.

As to your question, the only people who can give you a definitive answer are the licensing people at the CAA. But I'm afraid that it's going to be highly unlikely that you will get a dispensation of any sort from any part of the course. The basic training course has to cover something known as 'Common Core Content', you'll often hear people call it just CCC - essentially it's a syllabus for the course. These days to get a licence you actually have to follow the course rather than just pass the exams.

Also I don't know much detail there is in the current courses but back in the old days the knowledge required for met and nav was much higher than PPL standard - the exams I did were similar to CPL standard although not as wide-ranging.

Good luck with the training - enjoy it!

check pm :)

Spitoon thanks for your reply, that's what I suspected but I thought I'd ask. Regardless of whether my existing met and nav were accepted it will definitely be beneficial to cover all aspects of the course, I'm defintely looking forward to it!

And Anty... Right back atcha!

Cheers,
Ben.