Its always nice to get a confirmation regarding questions about licencing from someone who has first hand experience so here is my contribution.

I am a 'C' category Civilian Instructor with 642 VGS at Linton on Ouse. I have a UK PPL and a JAR CPL and was very keen for the hours flown with the ATC to count towards the revalidation of these civil licences.

I sent off my Licence and log book to the CAA with a cheque for £100 (don't get me started on that!) and a covering letter that read as follows:


Dear Sir/Madam

Addition of TMG rating to professional licence

Please find enclosed a cheque for £100 as per the scheme of charges on your web site, for the inclusion of a TMG rating on my commercial licence.

For clarification, note that the following requirements have been met:

Number of hours (TMG) flown is in excess of the minimum requirement of 70.

The aircraft flown was the military VIGILANT, not the Grob 109.

All logged hours are under powered flight as per Air Cadet Ops procedures.

I wish to add this rating to my licence in order that the hours flown will count towards my annual flying requirement. If there are any issues requiring further clarification, please contact me at the above E-mail address.

Enclosed: Log book, CPL No *****, Cheque £100, Current certificate of experience for Single engine piston aircraft.

Yours .....


I have just received my CPL back with TMG validation and had a verbal confirmation on the telephone that all hours flown on the Vigilant count towards my annual requirement.

So there you go.... Hope this may be of interest to some one.

Fly safe.

Quite correct - the requirements to add a TMG Rating to a Pilot's Licence are spelled out quite clearly in LASORS 2005. If you then have both SEP and TMG Class Ratings on a Pilot's Licence, hours on either count towards re-validation of both Ratings as stated in LASORS 2005.

But hardly anyone seems to know that!

Excellent. They counted all my Vigilant hours towards issue of a BCPL/CPL/Unfreezing ATPL and heavily discounted my FI course hours requirement on the strength of a C Cat rating. So they can be generous when they want to.

WWW

I have about 6hours in a Vigilant from air cadet days and the CAA didnt mind me adding the hours when I applied for my PPL.

Jinkster

I have been told I can use a maximum of 30 hours toward my CPL from the Vigilant. It would have been fantastic to use all the hours toward it but keeping my PPL ticking over is great.

C Cat is later this year so fingers crossed it helps with the FI rating like in WWW's case.

Best regards,

Buster

Blimey

I didn't realise that so many of the esteemed ppruners had gone down the ATC route. What good company I keep!

I personnaly can't believe my good fortune that I got involved with the organisation and every weekend I am paid (petrol money) to drive to an RAF base and fly the queens aeroplanes for free.

FANTASTIC.

Should anyone wish to find out more about this free flying in aid of a good cause (ie teaching Air Cadets to fly) have a read through

http://www.aircadets.org/civilian%20...instructor.htm

or call HQ Air Cadets on 01400 261 201 Ext 7612

They are currently in the middle of a recruiting drive!

What Ho, not paid and not sent to a plunder zone. Where's the fun

Hi all fellow viggie drivers how are you all doing. I have had a long hard struggle with the CAA and know of quite a few others in simlar positions across our fleet. I am a B Cat (shortly to expire) as i am on my last module of ground school for the ATPL an currently no time for weekend fun .

I got good dispensation for my PPL like many others but like many of us when we approach the subject of the CPL hours we get 30 hours max. Which aint so good. I have been asking lots of questions along with several others from other schools regarding the Vig when it was pre jar a SEP and now because there is no vigilant on the civil register the nearest thing to it is a Grob 109b. So we only get 30 hours TMG credit towards the hours for a CPL. I was glad to see that when i have finally gained my cpl i can keep it current using tmg as like the ppl using tmg to remain current.

Its just a pity we will get no backing from top brass to get the Vig on the civil register as a SEP.

So anyway after my exmas im off to USA to waste money on hour building which is pointless really with 750 hours on the VIG in my log book.

Regards

ACW 350

The Vigilant would need to be submitted for formal categorisation under JARs for it to be re-classified as a SEP Class aeroplane. There is no benefit to the operators of the a/c in going through that process; hence it remains a TMG Class aeroplane.

At the risk of being disloyal (as a current Vig A2), I think the Vig should never be a SEP. It doesn't have flaps, no double ignition system, no real fuel management to do and doesn't even have a DI! When you look at the kind of flying that we do (i.e. all local area, no real navs/landaways, little RT, no powered approaches etc..) I would be surprised if the CAA ever let more hours count towards a CPL. I fly SEP as well, and I would bet anybody would struggle to get to CPL standard in a SEP without a good grounding and some decent SEP hours post PPL issue.

Can i ask a silly question? What does TMG stand for?

P.S VGS flying great fun, I used to be instructor on the viking. None of that counted towards my cpl funnily enough!

TMG = Touring Motor Glider.

I was going to ask as well.

So SEP=Single Engine erm... something begining with P?

SEP = Single Engine Piston (JAR-FCL term)

SSEA = Simple Single Engined Aeroplane (NPPL term)

SLMG = Self Launching Motor Glider (NPPL term)

There is NO SUCH THING as a 'Group A' aeroplane any more - and hasn't been for over 5 years. Unfortunately some unprofessional organisations still persist in using the term though.

Ok thx. I thought of P being Power, but that would be redundant (again).

Almost all my flying has been stateside, where we have:

SEL - Single Engine Land
SES - Single Engine Sea
MEL - Multi Engine Land
MES - I suppose there are a few

I have to admit I don't know what they use for gliders, rotorcraft, lighter than air and I'm not even sure what "Lifting Bodies" are.

WWW etc;

As a Civilian Instructor on an ATC unit (Bris & Glos wing ), I am wondering how does one go about volenteering for Staff duties at a VGS?

I missed out on doing my GS as a cadet due to an admin cockup and the paperwork never got sent off before my time was up.

Ive since left as a cadet, gone to uni and am a CI on the squadron.

Can CI's do a GS and then go on to instruct?

My squadrons local VGS is 625 at Hullavington. Though I live about a mile from St Athan (for uni), which has a Vigilant VGS i believe.

Anyone know much about this?

Oh for crying out loud Beagle, will you stop. Nobody used the term group A, but yet again you choose to bang on about it for no good reason.

And to describe people or organisations who happen to use a particular shorthand term instead of this week's preferred jargon (I assume you refer to organisations like BMAA and PFA, where I know it's commonly used) to describe powered light aviation as "unprofessional" for that reason is petty and, put bluntly, incorrect.

If you want to call people like Francis Donaldson, Guy Gratton, Graham Newby or Chris Finnigan (all of whom I've heard use the term) unprofessional, do it to their face and justify yourself, don't make snide comments from behind a semi-anonymous identity on Pprune - you are bigger and more professional than that.

G

PhilM - just write a letter to the CO of the St Athan VGS expressing your desire to become involved and your background.

You'll very likely get asked along on a trial basis to make sure you are not a knob and as long as you have no problems with washing aircraft, a bit of sweeping and a lot of tea making you'll be in within 6 months.

My experience with the CAA was just before JAR implementation back in 1999. They then took a rather more pragmatic view of things and counted all my Vigilant time as Group A (as was ) and told my FIC course provider to give me just as much tuition as they thought necessary before sending me for test.

To be honest the high CFS checked standards of the Vigilant world couple to holding a PPL for 5 years was enough to make the CPL and FI modules a combine 5 week doddle.

But it probably ain't under JARs any more!

Cheers

WWW

Geng' the Eng', well, I work with some of those folk and we normally manage to use the correct terminology. Others, however, simply cannot or do not wish to use correct terms. My explanation of SEP, SSEA and SLMG was to clarify matters - hence I took the opportunity to remind everyone that, despite some dozy dinosaurs who still persist in using wrong terminology, there is no such thing as 'Group A' anymore.

I was not a great fan of the Eurocracy of JARs; however, we're stuck with it and people need to use the correct terminology to avoid error.

Just as in engineering.....