PPL in NW UK?
 

HI all,

I will soon be moving from Kenya to NW England for around 6 months and then on to Edinburgh. My Kenyan PPL is worthless in the UK, although I assume my logbook has value. So I guess I basically need to start again to get a UK PPL. In fact I am very rusty having not flown much for the last 2 years, and the UK airspace and ATC is very different from what I am used to, so a fresh start probably would be a good thing anyway. Any thoughts on the approach to make to UK authorities and a flight school (Harwarden is close) to help with the transition?

Also, what's the cost of flying in the UK?! In Kenya we work on a total cost of around $100/hour for a C172.

Have a look at:
https://www.caa.co.uk/general-aviati...-january-2023/

Welcome

Quite a variety on offer but you might need to be more specific about which town/city you will be based in.

Think in terms of $150 per hour or more..

The lovely little town of Frodsham ;-) That's roughly 10 miles NE of Chester.

Excuse me for questioning your question - I do not consider that very a polite way of discussing, but it might perhaps help - but are you sure you really want a PPL? Especially if budget is limited, a microlight is perhaps a viable alternative.
* pro: much more affordable, more fun for those who love basic flying, at least in some types, option to do maintenance by self
* con: only two seats; can never be extended to night VFR or IFR
Should you consider this road, find a place where they fly the C42 Ikarus, there are quite wide-spread in UK. Avoid the Tecnam types, they are (in my limited experience) heavy on the controls, like driving a truck, a lot less fun.

No need to apologise for the suggestion, it's something I have seriously considered. I know these as LSA's not microlights, but I may well be confusing the terminology. I'll investigate further

If you trained in Wilson then you'll find UK airfields a lot less busy. And aircraft 2-3x more expensive. Depending on how many hours you have you might find a UK PPL relatively straightforward.

NW UK starts about Glasgow.

NW England would be around Manchester.

First useful advice, don't confuse England with the UK, they're absolutely not the same place.

If your Kenyan PPL is ICAO compliant there's a streamlined route to get a UK licence. https://www.caa.co.uk/general-aviati...-january-2023/ . Scroll down and click on either "route 1" or "route 2".

As you rightly recognise the UK's law, procedures, airspace, etc. will be quite different to what you're used to - but any decent flying school will I'm sure be happy to put you through some groundschool. Ultimately the air, and the aeroplanes are pretty much the same.

Costs start around £50/hr if you've bought a share in a cheap vintage or amateur built aeroplane, 2-3 times that as a joint owner of something like a PA28 or C172, around £200-£300/hr for a school aeroplane. Much more for higher value aeroplanes, as I'm sure is the case anywhere else.

G

If you will be in Frodsham then your best and nearest would be https://www.merseyflight.co.uk/

Declaring an interest - I know one of the examiners here.... top bloke!

Things must have changed since I came back to the UK in 1976 (!) I just sent a copy of my Kenya PPL to the CAA and back came a brand new "brown covered" UK PPL.No exams, no flight test, no nothing!. Mind you at that stage Kenya was in the post-independence phase and the Kenya CAA acted like an outpost of the UK version.

As ETOPS has said, Merseyflight at Hawarden/Chester is your nearest and most convenient school. You also have a choice of schools at Liverpool and Barton which would be reachable within an hour. You could also head south to Sleap which has an excellent flying club but is a bit of a hike by road from Frodsham.

If you're only in the UK for six months you should be able to use your Kenyan licence for a temporary period. Speak to your chosen school and check the information on this page:


Recognition of ICAO third country licences in UK airspace Guidance for licence holders

The terminology is indeed confusing, very confusing. First there was the US'an ultralight as defined per FAA103, with a limited empty weight (254 lb.?) which practically makes it a slow single-seater. Then came European ultralight with 450 kg MTOW, typically a two-seater, initially with a 50-60 hp two-stroke engine, later quasi standardised to the now ubiquitous Rotax 912. Then these birds began to sell in the US too, so the FAA introduced their LSA category, with mostly the same planes but now suddenly with 600 kg MTOW or thereabouts. Then EASA had to follow and created a separate LSA category, broadly akin to the US'an example. Then some European countries introduced an equivalent to the original US'an ultralight, each with their own designation; in the UK it is an SSDR, if my old memory serves. Then some European microlight fliers complained about their 450 kg limit - which is indeed a bit ridiculous, if the exact same plane can fly at 600 kg across the pond - and some countries followed suit. Germany raised the MTOW for an ultralight to 600 kg, France to 500 kg.

Mind you, all of this is sub-icao, so that rules can and do vary from country to country.

To add to the confusion, there is a variance in vocabulary: the (originally) 450 kg plane was called an ultralight in just about every European language, or a local equivalent ("Ultraleicht" in German, "Ultraligeiro" here in PT, &c) but the Brits preferred to call it a microlight, perhaps to avoid confusion with the US'an ultralight.

I think the main difference between LSA and the various kinds of ultralights is that the one has a straight continuation to the PPL, whereas the other is a dead end: an ultralight/microlight license can not be continued into an ICAO PPL. Some of the hours flown may be taken in account, though, again varying per country.

Hoping I have not totally exhausted you :)

Thanks all. I will give Merseyflight at Hawarden a shout as soon as we have settled in. I have well over 100 hours as PIC in my logbook which should make the requirements less stringent, although the timing is such that my Kenyan license will have expired by the time I'm ready to start in the UK. Regardless, all my theory in Kenya was based on the UK system so a refresher and repeat should not be a problem and not be a bad thing to do.

Indeed Wilson airport is one of busiest in Africa by numbers of arrivals and departures, and the ATC situation around the airfield is best described as challenging (see here for instance https://www.pprune.org/accidents-clo...l). Someone told me if you can handle Wilson, you can handle anything. But once away from there, it's all very much simpler than the UK, and ATC procedures seem completely different. TBH, I am a bit intimidated at the thought of navigating all that complex and tightly controlled airspace. The vast majority of my flying has been in and out of dirt strips where you just advise 'Radar' of your intentions at the start, and ToD on arrival, and other than that just announce yourself to the world on the traffic advisory frequency.

With good cause, Britain's airspace is a complicated mess - and I say that having held a licence here for over thirty years and am very used to it.

The vast majority of us nowadays rely on apps to manage navigation and airspace avoidance, in addition to the traditional chart and navigation methods. Skydemon isn't the only choice but is definitely the most popular and well worth a look at.

Our ATC is indeed quite non standard. But it does make reasonable sense once you're used to it and our "listening squawk" system de-stresses it a lot. The CAA's RT and VFR flight guides are free online and well written. Those will help you a lot.

G

I'd agree with Genghis that SkyDemon is an excellent flight planning and navigational tool. You can also print out the route you've planned so if the GPS goes tits-up en route you've still got a purple line on a topo to follow.

One (controversial) British peculiarity is QFE, the altimeter setting which gives a zero reading on the ground at an airfield. Many pilots disregard this setting and fly QNH throughout, which you'll be familiar with.

The original poster will be familiar with QNH settings. As Nairobi is at 5000 feet you'd spend the first 5 minutes winding up the altimeter if you used QFE

Also looking forward to seeing how a C172 performs at density altitude less than 7,000ft.

Mid-winter at many airfields we can probably find you density altitudes less than zero feet around here.

G

I know what you mean D-B. I once took a Cherokee 180, four-up out of Nakuru (5,600ft?) and I swear the only reason we got out was that we all breathed in at Vr. Definitely "Learnt about flying" from that one. Mind you four-up with full tanks in a 172 at Denham (250ft) on a very hot Summer's day can be pushing the envelope.so perhaps I didn't learn my lesson fully.