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EASA PPL(A) - Are you restricted to fly 1 aircraft type?

10 Posts

Hi all,

I have recently obtained my EASA PPL(A) and am looking forward to start logging in the flight hours.
My training was done on a Tecnam P2008JC, my query is,

1. What is the procedure if I wish to fly another aircraft falling within the category of the PPL(A).
2. Are you limited to one aircraft lets say I get an endorsment such as NVFR?

Regards.

Malta

Hmm… Your air law course should have taught you that. Anyway, you have a PPL(A) with a SEP Land (single engine land piston) class rating. If I understand correctly, your training happened on a plane without turbo (normally aspirated engine), without pressurisation, with a fixed pitch propeller and a fixed undercarriage (“landing gear”). Did it have an EFIS (instruments on screen) or “needles on round boxes” old-style instruments? Is the Rotax engine it has a “single lever power control” or does it have a separate throttle and mixture?

You can only fly “land” airplanes with a single piston engine. No seaplanes, no multiple engines, no turboprop, no jet. To fly those, you need to pass the relevant class rating in a DTO or ATO. That class rating is then written into your licence by (or on behalf of) the authority.

You need further training, whose successful completion must be written in your logbook (not on your licence) by the instructor, before flying a single-engine piston aeroplane:

  • with retractable undercarriage
  • with constant-speed propeller
  • with a turbocharged or turbonormalised engine
  • with single lever power control (if the P2008JC doesn’t have a single lever power control)
  • with EFIS (if your training aeroplane didn’t have an EFIS)

If you get a night rating, it is valid on all planes that you can fly.

ELLX

lionel wrote:

You need further training, whose successful completion must be written in your logbook (not on your licence) by the instructor, before flying a single-engine piston aeroplane:

with retractable undercarriage
with constant-speed propeller
with a turbocharged or turbonormalised engine
with single lever power control (if the P2008JC doesn’t have a single lever power control)
with EFIS (if your training aeroplane didn’t have an EFIS)

The scope of the differences training is not defined. The instructor signs your logbook with something like „Differences training EFIS/VP performed“.
So, theoretically, it could be one traffic circuit, a week of theory class or whatever..

In practice, the instructor will verify you can safely operate the plane.

always learning
LO__, Austria

There is also a concept of “familiarisation training”.

When moving between types in the SEP class rating, you need familiarising training. However this is even less involved than difference training. You can even do it yourself. It could be as simple as reading the POH/flight manual, or having an oral briefing with another pilot. It just basically means that you should know what you are about to do and if the new type has anything different that you should know before flying it.

As far as I know, there is no requirement to record this anywhere. It’s really just common sense.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

I had a pax flight with the owner before we bought the Bolkow Junior. My next flight was solo, after we’d bought her.
No instructor familiar with type was known to us.
You’d obviously familiarise yourself with the aircraft before flying.
As my first flight was into weather closing in, and a return, with ~20 minutes total, I bent the flap indicator pressing it instead of the adjacent flap switch, turning final while talking to Donna Nook firing range.
After squawking ‘With Charlie" all the way to Inverness, when we replaced the transponder with a Mode S we found there was no encoder. :-(
You’ll also need training signed off for a tailwheel aircraft.

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom

Annex 1 planes usually requires extra training, depending on the plane.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Dear all many thanks to your input, it gives a better perspective of topic
I had a idea in mind but wanted to see the general view on the topic especially when hour building at economically

Malta

To slightly digress, but maybe of interest in due course, when you move into multis it changes again, so types start to become recognised, and when you move into turbines and jets then type ratings are the norm. In the case of multis you cant simply jump from one multi to another, although the type isnt specifically on your licence, but for most jets and turbines the type rating is specifically on your licence.

Dru190 wrote:

I had a idea in mind but wanted to see the general view on the topic especially when hour building at economically

That’s another story altogether. You can “hour build” in any aircraft (SEP), also Annex 1, as long as you have a valid EASA PPL. But I was under the expression hour building in a SEP was irrelevant in EASA land for commercial pilots. Perhaps not? The way EASA works, it’s better to lay on the beach reading exam questions, than it is to actually fly an aircraft was my impression.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Maoraigh wrote:

I had a pax flight with the owner before we bought the Bolkow Junior. My next flight was solo, after we’d bought her. No instructor familiar with type was known to us. You’d obviously familiarise yourself with the aircraft before flying.

I’ve never bought a plane that was in actuality airworthy as purchased. When I bought my current plane, the price was pretty good but the former owner was (so I subsequently determined) scared to fly it due to an undisclosed safely issue that could not realistically have been uncovered in the pre-buy. There was no test flight and nobody else within about 2000 miles who had ever flown one. I needed a few hours regardless with a CFI before I could fly as PIC, for insurance although not as a legal requirement.

Don’t tell anyone but I went flying with the best non-CFI pilot I know, he having experience flying everything under the sun, the after we figured out the design was OK in his judgement and I was competent I took a CFI friend for a short ride, and the requisite logbooks entry. 5 hrs with him in the plane went by remarkably quickly.

Over the next 20 hrs or so I discovered the intermittent electric propeller ground while flying solo, plus careful diagnosis to replicate the problem on the ground, and successfully corrected it myself without assistance. Then I found a bad speed propeller rpm sensor, a design known to be unreliable by the manufacturer and superseded minus AD or SB, and corrected that too.

Real World 1, Inapplicable Model 0.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 13 Jan 16:58
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