Pilot training in the UK
 

Dear All,

I am very new to the idea of possessing a flying license and I have a few general questions:

1. What is the rough cost of the whole training in the London area (including books, studies, flying, exams etc.)?

2. Which flight school would be the best, and possibly closest to London?

3. Considering you get you regular, basic license, what planes are you allowed to fly? are there any regulations restricting your distance/passenger carrying or any other domain?

Thank you very much in advance for all your help and I am really sorry for potential repetition of certain topics already present on this forum.

Have a look here for some of your answers:
http://www.pprune.org/private-flying...train-ppl.html
http://www.pprune.org/private-flying...-scotland.html

Cost wise, you are recommended not to pay up front, as schools have a habit of going bust, taking your money with them, no matter how good they look. Some of the "all in" packages offered also only include the bare minimum and don't include exams or landing fees at other air fields. If you do an intensive course, you learn quickly and you have a natural aptitude, you might make in the in the minimum time (45 hours flying time for PPL). Most people don't, and so have to continue to pay the additional cost of lessons. Cost is probably around £7000 - but there are a huge number of variables.

Location - you have the joys of the Olympics which is restricting much of London's airspace which will make things harder this summer. There are lots of training schools around from what I hear, but being up north, I can't recommend any. Google is your friend. Pick a place you can get to easily, as with the UK weather, and planes going "tech", there will be lots of days you get to the airport and can't fly. Also try and get trial lessons at a few, to see which suits you. I suggest selecting a few, then asking more specific questions here.

A PPL with a SEP rating, allows you to fly, not for profit, a single-piston-engined, non-turbocharged, fixed-pitch propeller, fixed tricycle gear, non-pressurised land aeroplanes (with a few exceptions), during the day, in good visibility and within sight of the ground (in UK). There are few of these aircraft which have more than 4 seats. See Pilot licensing in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for a summary of different licence options.

If you get a UK PPL, you can fly a UK registered plane in any country in the world pretty much.

Good luck - happy future flying!

and I meant to say- the flyer forums are often better for general PPL student chat unless you've got a specific question - although there are a few of us student PPLs who hang around here and are tolerated...

Hey, thanks very much for an extensive answer mate, really appreciate it. Just a couple more questions which popped into my head:

1. If I wanna fy at night, do I need to have another license?

2. If I am a EU citizen, but not British born, can I still do the license in the UK?

3. Which airports/aeroclubs tend to be the best?

4. Is there any particular difference between machines you learn to fly on? I mean, is Cessna very different from others?

BTW, any good schools around London you might have heard about? Which airports/aeroclubs are best in the country?

THanks again in advance for your comments.

Fly at night - you need a night rating. About 5 hours instruction...

Nationality - doesn't matter in the UK.

Location - I can't answer for London - I'm learning in Scotland - which is great but a bit of a commute...

Which plane to learn on - everyone has favourites but I wouldn't worry too much about which one unless you are very large. There are advantages and disadvantages of pretty much every plane going, but most people learn on PA28s or Cessna 152s. Nothing wrong with either of them. I'm learning in a SA Bulldog though - much nicer plane!

How much does it cost to get a licence might be the wrong question, depending on what you want the licence for.

If you just want to get the licence, tick the box, and then move on to the next thing on your list, be it cave diving or stock car racing or whatever, then it's the right question.

But if you want to carry on flying after getting the licence you may also wish to ask how much it costs to keep a licence, which is a much more complicated question with many different possible answers. And this could be more difficult - for some people adding £7k or £9k to their mortgage to fund the course as a one off is no big deal, particularly with today's interest rates, but finding £3k per year each and every year afterwards to keep flying is more difficult.

London flying establishments
 

Hi bober02,

London is a huge place and is ringed with flying establishments, most of them pretty good.

Tell us roughly what part of London are you based in and then we can tell you which flying establishments are likely to be the best ones in your sector.

Regards,

BP.

The best school is the one that does the job properly, but more importantly, the one where you feel at home and have a good report with the people who work there. You will only determine that by visiting a few schools, seeing if you like them, and how you get on with people there. Next consider cost, not all the prices quoted are the actual prices you will pay, schools tend to offer deals and hide some costs. London for example is the most expensive place in the UK to learn to fly, its also problematical because you cant cross London, you have to go around it, meaning you are limited in where you can do the training, both horizontally and vertically. Many people in the London area find it cheaper to drive to an airfield away from London to do their training. Remember some people on here may have a vested interest! Get on your bike and do some research. As stated above, why do you want a licence? it may affect your decisions!

Well, I must say you guys are amazing in terms of speed and depth of your answers.

In reply, I would firstly like to say that 3k per year is a small cost, roughly what I would need to pay for keeping a good car in London.

With regards to my location, schools etc. I am staying in Battersea area of London, south from Chelsea. I checked a few local aeroclubs, one in Luton, at Cranfield, one in Brighton (which costs about 8k) and they all look pretty similar. They tend to have different planes though. Any advice where to have a look?

Have a look around, ask a few questions to resident instructors or PPL's milling around and see what one works out best in terms of location, and your inner sense.

I fly from Panshanger, near Welwyn Garden City, it is has a nice informal club atmosphere, the training is thorough, it has a fairly long grass runway and a number of PA28 low wing aircraft. When I was looking around for my PPL, one of their engineers took the trouble to take me out to an aircraft and explain a few things to me. I liked that, and immediately booked up my first lesson in the following week.

You also have to think about what you want to do when you have passed. E.g. is the location suitable for your kind of touring; do they have other planes (e.g. complex, aerobatic or tail wheel aircraft) you might fancy extending your license too; do they have night training or some kind of instrument training facilities; is the food any good etc...

It depends on who you ask. Ask a Cessna Sales Representative and you get a completely different answer than what a mechanic, instructor or pilot would give you.

Having said that, from a pilot perspective the flying characteristics between the two most common training aircraft (PA28 Piper Warrior and Cessna 172) are pretty much the same. Cockpit layout, the way the systems are setup and controlled, are all pretty much the same too. Once you have your license, all that's typically required is a browse through the POH (Pilots Operating Handbook) and an hour checkout flight and you're good to go. Legally speaking you don't even need the one-hour checkout, but you do need to be familiar with certain bits of information contained in the POH.

The same applies for performance. The far majority of the rental fleet is based on a 160 HP engine, burns about 8.8 USG of avgas per hour, and cruises around 100 knots. They can carry four adults with half fuel (about 2.5 hours endurance) or three adults with full fuel (about 4.5 hours endurance).

So the only real difference between a Cessna and a Piper (or Robin, or Bulldog, or whatever) is the view. A Cessna is great for sightseeing as the wings are not in the way of looking downward. But your head is essentially in the wing, so the view sideways and up is severely restricted. Low wings are better for looking sideways and up, but if you look down the wing is in the way.

So to a very large extent the choice of aircraft comes down to preference and availability. It's a good idea to stick to one aircraft type during training, but once you have your PPL it's very common to get checked out on a number of other types, so you have a choice based on availability, preference and mission.

I'm currently flying out of Cranfield with the Azure flying club, and it seems like a good place to me :) Its also just outside the olympic restrictions :D

If its on your list of possibilities you might want to read this recent thread:
http://www.pprune.org/private-flying...d-airport.html

W

Forgive the pedantry but it's actually now called a night qualification.

Good news is you can do most of (if not all) of it within your minumum number of training hours for the PPL.

That said, however , it is unusual to qualify in UK in the minimum number of hours, best to budget plus 10-20% in costs for your PPL.

Hi Bober, and welcome to the student pilot clan!

Like the comment riverrock, and tolerated is just about right! ;) But Flyer Forum is great for we studes, I use it more than PPrune these days for my questions which probably seem daft to the experienced pilot!.

Can't really help you much with clubs around S London (Biggin Hill, I think that may have some? Although have you contacted the RAF Flying Club at Halton? Grass strip (I prefer concrete!!) But much cheaper than a civilian flying club/school. But as to aircraft. Yes it does seem to be personal choice, but I wouldn't want to fly in anything other than a low wing type now.

Anyway, good luck and welcome to the hours of pleasure and frustration (and cursing the weather as I was doing today!!)

The other questions are how quickly you want to do it, and how you'll fit the study in with the rest of your life.

If you can take the time out to do an intensive course, (or even to do part of the course intensively) then you will progress much faster. I speak from experience having drawn my hang-gliding lessons out over many years, and having done my PPL in about 2 months. Progress can be very slow if you're having a lesson a month, and that gets cancelled 1/3 of the time due to weather or aircraft serviceability.

There's also quite a lot of bookwork to get through - none of it particularly hard, but reasonably time consuming and quite rewarding.

Thanks again for your helpful comments.

If I decide to do my license I will probably aim for 2 hours a week, that is the maximum I would be able to do (maybe 3 if I am allowed to fly for 3 hours straight). That should be pretty intensive course, isn't is?

Thanks for link to cranfield airport, really appreciate it. Anyone knows any other places/aeroclubs in the proximity of 50 miles from central London?

An intensive course is more like 4-5 weeks, with flying 1/2/3 hours a day, probably in 2x or 3x 1 hour sessions (which people tend to do in the US, but lets not get into the usual pros/cons of that plan here).

Be cautious about trying to do 2 hour lessons - 3 will likely be a non-starter (your instructor will need to pee occasionally!).

When you're first starting out, 2 hour lessons will leave you knackered and overloaded - you likely won't get much value out of the 2nd hour.

2 hour bashes around the circuit likewise will leave you shattered.

If you really wanted to do 2 hours, you'd likely do 1 hour, wait a couple of hours and fly the next hour. You'd likely be better served by doing 1 hour, twice per week, rather than on the same day (would also give you some redundancy as you can expect to have a decent proportion of lessons cancelled due to weather).

All replies have been about the PPL, but you could also consider microlight flying. Not at night, though, legally.

The best is two 1-hour flights per day.

That way you build currency rapidly, and pass the test easily first time, after the minimum time.

But, doing a PPL near one's home, in the UK, nobody does that, for obvious reasons. You fit the training into your life. Then it takes a year, usually.

My son is having one lesson a week until his GCSEs are done and then I will let him have one a day.

Firstly, an hours flying lesson is not just an hour. You'll have preflight briefings and you'll be expected to check the plane and stuff. After landing if you don't have a formal debrief you're going to want to have a chat to your instructor about what you've done and what to read up on next. That's not taking in to consideration travelling to and from the place of training. Example, my last lesson was at 13:30, I'm fortunate to live 10 mins from Southend airport, so I left home at 12:45 and got back in at 15:30. True that involved some chatting and not a lot of rushing about on my part but if you're planning on turning up and leaving just over an hour later then you'll not only be disappointed but I think you'll find it difficult to learn.

When abgd mentions intensive training, I think the reference is to learning in blocks rather than longer individual lessons. For instance, it is possible to take a four week course in Florida where you live and breath flying. The weather makes that set up more difficult in the uk. No need to go into that as a search of the forum will give you more details if that suits your personal time and money situation.

One thing is certain is that in th beginning, you'll be hard pushed to do 2-3 hours at once as it's mentally exhausting and I feel it would be counter productive to your learning. As you progress, having two lessons in one day with a break in between can be worth considering.

:)

Further suggestions
 

Hi bober02,

Some of the clubs suggested to you above, while no doubt very good in terms of facilities and training standards, would be a ridiculous choice in terms of travelling time and transport cost. I feel you should reckon on a maximum of 90 minutes travelling time - tops.

Bearing in mind where you are based, I suggest you take a look at the clubs at Redhill, Lashenden/Headcorn and Biggin Hill. Of these, my own preference would be the Tiger Club at Lashenden/Headcorn; long established and with a good name, but there are good clubs at all three locations.

Someone has mentioned three axis microlight flying. I would strongly concur with this suggestion. The TAM aircraft are generally much more modern than Group A aircraft, cheaper to operate, more capable, nicer to fly and often much more roomy inside. The average club Group A aircraft was built in the eighties (or earlier), and has an engine dating back to the thirties.

Also, look out for clubs operating the new VLAs (very light aircraft). These too are much more modern than the average Group A spamcan and have all the advantages of the TAMs mentioned above, cost no more than a Group A to hire, and you can get a full PPL/NPPL on them.

Good luck.

Regards,

BP.

It is very true that a more intensive course (at the beginning of doing circuits, 40 minutes at a time will be enough to frazzle your brain!) will get you a PPL with less training time, so will cost less money.

However, it is worth thinking about what you are going to do with your PPL after you finish the course. If you then have no money left after the short course and don't fly again for months, you will forget what you have learned as quickly as you were taught it. You will start to forget about that flying dream and you'll quickly start to drift away.
If you plan on being a hobby pilot I suggest that doing a longer course can embed the knowledge more deeply, and you then get used to a certain level of regular expenditure which is easier to keep up once you've qualified. Very different if you have a particular purpose for learning though, such as trying to become professional or perhaps even commuting...

I guess, after what I read, I would opt for taking two, 1 hour long lessons per day. That way I could finish all required practical sessions in 6 months roughly, which is fine by me.

@BroomstickPilot: thanks for your pointers about the airfields. Actuallu, luton/cranfield is not that far, neither is Brighton - both roughly 1.5 hour door to door. Considering this, which probably expands the range of possible aeroclubs, any new proposals?

Nobody should start a PPL unless they can see their way to having the funds to fly meaningfully afterwards.

What "meaningfully" means will differ but it is at least a few grand a year - unless you go the "hang glider" route in which case do you need a PPL?

Hi Bober,
I can see why you would wish to learn in a consolidated block, but with the weather, aircraft and instructor availability that may not always be possible. In my experience, if this helps, our CFI said that on average, a PPL took 18 months to two years to achieve. I have now been learning basically two years; I have 51 hours and no where near taking my skills test!! There are many reasons for this (not least my thick brain cell ;) ) But i've found that if you start to give yourself timescales, you jsut stress yourself out more. if money is not too much of an issue I would take the flying as it comes, don't get too stressed if its taking "too much time" and most of all enjoy the experience. If you find you get a really good instructor you'll enjoy it even more. I think this is the key, as you will be spending many hours with him/her so need to have get on - even if its only on teh professional level and not on the friendship level (as I now have with my instructor!)

I totally agree with the others about your brain being frazzled after an hour in teh early lessons. Now i'm onto Nav and 1hr 30 airborne frazzles my brain! And as Wierdfish says, an "hour" is not an hour. I guess you should allow about three hours for all the preliminary and de-briefing (and chatting in teh clubhouse ;) ) I now basically spend about six hours at the weekend at the club when flying and if flying in the evening, about four hours. Then theres study time outside the practical flying...Its a time (and life!) consuming hobby as well as an expensive one! Learning to fly is definitely one HUGE commitment in time, brain power and money! ...but the best hobby in teh world :ok:

Hope this helps
GQ

Thanks guys, another useful experiences/comments.

So far I see my potential flying career as the following:
- It will be a hobby and I will definitely continue it after I get the license, as otherwise it is a waste of money
- i will allow half a day to do the 2-hour flying practice session in order to accommodate for talks/checks etc.
- I am planning to do it somewhere close to london so that I could fly regularly without having to commute far

on that last statement, I still need more aeroclubs around London you guys would recommend. Thanks.

Of the top of my head, from where you are, use the internet and look at clubs and schools (they are not quite the same thing although both will teach you to fly) at Redhill, Damyns Hall, Stapleford, North Weald, Biggin Hill Panshanger, Elstree, Denham, Helnlow, Blackbushe, Fairoaks, Wycombe and White Waltham.

From my point of view, close to home is important. Flying (and the associated hanging around) is expensive and time consuming enough without long trips to and from the airfield. Also, does the school / club have enough of the right kind of aeroplanes and instructors for you? You are going to spend a lot of time with both so need to be happy with them. I have been lucky and consider most of the instructors I have flown with now to be friends. Some places are very loosely organised, some are tightly organised. It is up to you which suits you best.

Choice of aircraft: will you be happy to fly two seaters, in daytimes and fine weather only? In which case you can use what are loosely called microlights and VLA (either three axis or weight shift, sorry, you will have to research all this!); if you want more seats and / or more flexibility you need conventional light aircraft.

Referring to Grob Queen's post. I learnt to fly at Halton and am still there after nearly five years so I recommend it.

Frankly go to the 2-3 schools that are physically nearest to you, ask questions, and have a good look around.

All will be priced similarly, all will use similar aeroplanes.


DO spend time chatting to your potential instructor and pay for a short trial flight with them. If it's near, and the instructor seems somebody you are happy sitting with and learning from, it's probably an appropriate school.

Don't waste lots of time commuting to fly. More than half an hour's travel, if you have a choice, is probably wasted. Do put some effort however into deciding if the instructor is right. Ask if you can talk to some of their existing or recent students if you like - a fair question, and somebody who has recently finished their PPL course should give you useful answers.

G

That list is fantastic, thanks a lot for that mate!

I don't quite follow this statement - do you mean that certain schools will be able to provide proper, four seater planes while others only 2-seater and I should not even bother with those?

To clarify...

2 hours a week is not remotely "intensive" for a PPL. 45 hours in two months would qualify as an "intensive" course, better described as a full time course, where you would be at the flying school 8 hours a day, 5-6 days a week.

2 hours a week (which would be two one hour flights + 2/3 hours associated briefing/debriefings) would be a "very low intensity course" spread over 9 - 18 months (or longer) depending on your rate of learning. Most people won't do it in the minimum hours spread this way, because of the need to revise and consolidate more often when flying training is spread out.

The length of your flights (and all aspects of your training schedule) will be determined by your instructor...not you.

Don't take any of this as authoritative...or any thing else you read on here. go to flying school or two and get them to explain all this over a coffee. At the moment, reading your comments, you are somewhat in the dark.

Ah, sorry, I was being unclear. Whatever you ultimately want to do, you will probably learn on two seaters and it will be during the day and in fine weather. It's just that once you have qualified, if you want to do more than that, you need a full international (EASA in the UK) license for conventional light aircraft. If long term you want to stick to two seaters, day, VFR (more jargon to learn!) then you have the microlight / VLA option.

Does that make more sense? If not, keep asking.

I am just beginning gathering info about PPl so yes, you are quite right, I am in the dark. But many people said that doing the course over a longer period of time consolidates techniuque and information better than the fast-track one as you tend to revise more often. I guess doing it in the course of a year would not be a bad idea either...

This is the excerpt from a previous answer:

So, following your understanding, when I do my PPL, I still cannot fly a four-seater and have to progress to sth more general?

The PPL includes the permission to fly "generic" single-engined piston-powered (SEP) planes such as the C152, C172, PA28 to name but the most widespread. As said, this includes two-seaters, four-seaters, and a few planes with 5 or 6 seats. A PPL can be extended with privileges like night flying and instrument flying. It is also the first step towards type ratings for more complex planes, including but not limited to twins.

Microlights OTOH can never have more than two seats and are limited to day-time VFR flying.
They make up for these limitations with lower cost of acquisition, operation, and maintenance. No to mention a less stringent medical inspection.

It really depends on what you are ultimately going or hoping to do.

The single seat aeroplanes I've flown all seemed entirely "proper" as well.

There is no real difference between the skills required to fly a single, 2, 4 or for that matter 6 or 8 seater aeroplane. So long as you're flying something in good condition with a fairly standard set of instruments - just learn in something reasonably inexpensive.

Once you have your licence, if you want to convert to flying something else, just do that - so long as your flying skills are reasonably sharp, expect to take 60-90 minutes. You can also switch flying clubs whenever you wish, although unless they've mucked you about, I'd not recommend doing that during your PPL course.

I don't think that anybody would recommend doing the NPPL(SSEA) straight off; so, either do the JAR-PPL(SEP) or decide to fly microlights for now and do the NPPL(M). A microlight licence is much cheaper, but limits you to microlights (which don't have more than 2 seats) - a light aircraft (SEP) licence allows you to convert to microlights fairly cheaply and easily.

G

Does he have any figures for that? Not saying he's wrong as they may indeed be the average figures but it seems an awful long time.

With the tendency of the average adult to get busy at work, run out of money for a while, suddenly have a family member either get born, sick, die, or all at once - it seems about right to me.

G

Yeah I suppose that would sound about right then.

Depends on the instructor and student surely...this was true when I began, but now, many's the time when my instructor asks..>"right, what do you want to do today then?!" Obviously he has final veto/choice etc but more often than not, if he asks me this, we'll go with what I fancy!!

Hi Thing, if you knew who our CFI is (well, actually, maybe you do!!!) you wouldn't argue with him :ok: But so far he's been correct in my case...practically two years training and no where near skills test yet...

Let's put it this way, your renowned CFI is well known......:)