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60 year old ex Army Pilot getting back in the air?

Tumbleweed.

I concur, I was a geriatric 30 year old when I started my Army Pilots course and by far the oldest candidate. I was Mr Average throughout where some of my classmates were stellar (at times). Flights were rated Blue, Green, Brown or red. Some of the younger guys were nearly always Blue with the odd red thrown in once in a while. My record was 1 Blue and 1 Brown sortie, all the rest solidly in the Green and trust me I was working hard to maintain even that average. Age is a huge factor. I’m now responsible for the training of Train Drivers on very modern high speed trains from Japan and see the same traits there too.

Back to flying, the instructors thought that my consistency throughout the course deserved recognition and luckily that year a new trophy was instigated in memory of Bill Smithson by his widow. I was very shocked to hear my name called out at the Wings Ceremony! It was for the best student fixed wing phase; Im sure I wasn’t, but there was no trophy for mister average.

Pete, Very interesting thank you we need a UK version!

Malcolm

I thought this might be somewhat relevant

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

APC 300
Some years ago I trained a guy who last flew Whirlwinds in the 1950s. A good rule is to say 1 hour for each year you have been away from it. You will probably find 20 hours will get you to a standard to pass the test. The rate of return is much quicker that the ab-initio rate of learning except perhaps for the very young. When I trained military cadets the learning profile of an 18 year old was near vertical whilst the learning profile of a 43 year old was near horizontal, but they had the wisdom and experience an 18 year old could only dream of. As one hairy put it: “I was in uniform before you were in liquid form”

Last Edited by Tumbleweed at 25 Jun 08:20

All in the name of saving money; supposedly!

Yes apart from a couple of little links via Article 22 ANO doesn’t apply to UK military registered aircraft – I was thinking more about the whole RAF Tutor fleet which is G registered. Matters are even more complex these days when you’ve got some types with the engineering done by military engineers with EASA Part 66 licences in a 145 Organisation, with mixed civilian and military crew operating!

Now retired from forums best wishes

It’s the same in Norway, at least it used to be. There are no military licenses, only qualifications. When converting, all the civilian theoretical exams has to be taken. All flight hours counts, and you can add 10% on top of that when converting to civilian flight hours (don’t know why).

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

in the U.K. military pilots are not required to hold a licence, it is a UK ANO exemption and military regulations apply instead.

Nothing to do with the ANO. Military pilots fly military aircraft under military rules, nothing whatsoever to do with the CAA where C stands for “Civil”
There is an Exemption in the ANO to allow Military pilots to fly civil aircraft as part of their Service duty, when I worked for the RAE there were ex RAF pilots flying Andovers with no civil licences. It also meant that in an Emergency, military pilots could be used where perhaps their civil counterparts would not wish to go.

Of course the military have flying qualifications.

For some strange reason (I say “strange” because the UK CAA has historically been staffed with many ex RAF people) you get little or no credit for military flying in the UK.

In 2011 I was at a ground school FTO (JAA IR ground school, optional for the FAA to JAA IR conversion I was doing) and there were ~ 4 guys currently in the RAF who were required to get ATPLs so they could fly some not 100% military stuff (I don’t recall the details). They had to do everything from scratch. All 14 exams, etc.

It was not always thus. I know one ex RAF guy who got grandfathered all the way, not a single exam, ever, IIRC. I suspect it was JAA that killed the military → civilian route.

Similarly in the civilian scene, PPL/FIs got grandfathered into BCPLs and then into CPLs so they could get paid for ab initio PPL training. One FI I flew with never had formal instrument training but was teaching the IMCR (he was about 60 then so been in the business a long time).

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

(when you fly for the military, do you not at least get a military license?)

Dear all,

Many thanks for your support and the creative thinking (Silvare). Its great to see that this sort of mutual assistance and camaraderie that binds aviators old and new is still very much in evidence. Frankly I think doing the full NPPL is the minimum I should do after such a long lapse (even if I could squeeze some exemptions) it will be the safest route for me and my fellow aviators .

My wife has given me a voucher for an hour trial lesson at Sleap for my birthday and this will be a good way for me to assess my residual skills and the task ahead. Balliol I will be in touch thank you for the clarity.

I will update this thread as soon as I have done the lesson. Thank you all again.

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