I felt bad enough about abusing it when transitioning to my plane, can’t imagine using it to get the PPL. The IR, on the other hand…
If your type is not a C172 or PA28, finding an instructor/examiner for a quick check flight is already tough, he has to be a poh reader and brave type, maybe one from vintage/gliding scene as they are used to single seat flying? also the school needs to send the aircraft checklist to be approved by the CAA for a start, that takes 2 months and costs money 
Peter wrote:
Doing an ab initio PPL in your own G-reg won’t be a lot easier – it depends on finding a school willing to play ball. You should be able to find one, somewhere.But not in a retractable etc. It is possible legally but if you can find one to take this on I will eat my oil filter
I’d love to see that, Peter 
When I was instructing, a student bought a PA28RT-201 Arrow IV [probably the worst handling of the arrows, BTW] just after first solo. We got his aircraft on the schools books and he finished his PPL including the skills test in the aircraft.
@jdaisey; I no longer instruct, but if you are interested in seeing Peter eat that filter, I can let you know the school – send me a PM. Not sure they would have done it on an N-reg.
Hmmm, Cobalt, I need to be sure this game is fairly played. Are you 100% certain that Arrow was genuinely retractable ?
It was either that, or it had an upgraded engine to cruise at 135kt… which was the fun bit. No point babying the student (or the engine), we cruised at 75%, and I had to rework all the nav routes because the ones we used in the school were designed for 80-100kt cruise and too short to be meaningful exercises. He – gasp – even had to learn how to lean!
Leaern how to lean bellow 2500ft that is a luxury skill
Looks like you can get an FAA Student Pilot Certificate issued in the UK! Found an FAA instructor who does it so one can fly solo on Ab-initio EASA PPL on N reg. Thought it may be interesting for others to know
A US student pilot certificate is ordinarily not valid for exercising pilot-in-command privileges in international flight. 14 CFR 61.89(a)(5) refers.
Thanks! Looks like I may have been inadvertently misinformed
Qalupalik wrote:
A US student pilot certificate is ordinarily not valid for exercising pilot-in-command privileges in international flight. 14 CFR 61.89(a)(5) refers.
I thought about this some more and spoke to an intructor. I also read the above regulation. It seems to me (and the instructor) that ‘international flight’ applies to crossing international borders, rather than a flight done within a country. i.e. if the solo is done on an N reg in the UK (without crossing into France/etc), then it would not be deemed an international flight?
