Please keep in mind that some of these (national) microlight qualifications (they are not “licenses”) are really very basic and give very limited privileges. They often don’t include radio privileges, advanced navigation, don’t allow you to use controlled airspaces or airports, don’t allow the carriage of passengers, etc. So, it’s basically a qualification to fly (alone) a basic microlight aircraft from some strip of grass, bimble around and land as an uncontrolled flight and land there again. This can be taught and learned in 15 hours.
In Italy, the basic ultralight qualification is 16 flight hours.
Everyone that I have come across who has done a Microlight Class Rating With Operational Limitations has done it to lock in the passes in the written exams.
I know of another guy with 1500 hours plus as a “passenger” who talked about doing it but as far as I know he never got round to doing it.
Out of interest the Operational Limitations at initial issue are:
The licence is valid for flight in the UK only The pilot may not carry any passenger The pilot may not fly with a cloud base less than 1000 feet above ground level or with less than 10 kilometres visibility The pilot may not fly further than 8 nautical miles from take-off.Everyone that I have come across who has done a Microlight Class Rating With Operational Limitations has done it to lock in the passes in the written exams.
Is it possible do these ~15hrs, lock in the ~7 PPL exam passes that way, and then later come back and do the PPL? How much credit does one get towards the 45hrs of the PPL? It’s an interesting route.
The licence is valid for flight in the UK only The pilot may not carry any passenger The pilot may not fly with a cloud base less than 1000 feet above ground level or with less than 10 kilometres visibility The pilot may not fly further than 8 nautical miles from take-off.
All I can say is “WOW”.
Peter wrote:
fly safely, never mind usefully, in 15hrs
Back in the ‘old days’ people would solo in very few hours. Without set runways there’s no crosswind landings, without radios there’s no pilot-language to learn, without controlled airspace or zones there’s less hassle in flight. Engines were less reliable, and planes flew slower. This sounds very similar to my (mis?)conception of modern microlighting.
My aéroclub recently bought a Groppo Trail, and reading the rest of this thread the qualif’ ULM now sounds attractive, and a lot easier than I had previously thought. Anything that is valid for life is worth having 
I would agree that the high-end and faster types would need more than 15 hours, but this could be post-licence training. Pipistrel’s Virus SW (a plane I’m keeping an eye on) is actually faster in the UL version than the certified version (less weight?), and I get the impression that the microlight community is more ambitious than their Cessna and Piper burger-run cousins.
I was talking to an elderly American pilot a while ago, who said “in the 1970s I said I’d never fly a single… and look at me now.” I wonder how many of today’s younger PPLs will end up on microlights? I know a few already who have downgraded from a TT or PPL to a Brevet de base or LAPL for age/medical reasons.
It locks in the NPPL Microlight written exams of which there are 5 – Meteorology, Navigation, Aviation Law, Human Performance and Limitations and Aircraft Technical
I have to say these TK exams are far better than the PPL exams much more relevant.
You are then able to get the operation restriction lifted and then add a SSEA rating and then get a LAPL or PPL.
However as things stand at the moment any NPPL (SSEA) obtained after April 2018 can’t be converted to a LAPL or PPL. You have to do the whole LAPL/PPL course.
Fortunately (but not for the UK GA industry) the FAA will count many types of microlight as SEL and in fact I know one guy who did this to get a FAA CPL with the intention of then converting this to an EASA one. Unfortunately he hasn’t had time as he is flat out earning 80K plus flying all over the world on his n reg licence at the moment.
Peter wrote:
Is it possible do these ~15hrs, lock in the ~7 PPL exam passes that way, and then later come back and do the PPL? How much credit does one get towards the 45hrs of the PPL? It’s an interesting route.
I first did the UL license and later upgraded to the PPL, I needed to do all theoretical exams for PPL, but I could credit 10% of my ULM flying hours with a maximum of 10h. So I had to fly 35hours to do the PPL checkride instead of 45hours. This was before EASA, now with EASA you get 0 credit if you already have the UL license. However you get credit if you have PPL and you want to obtain an UL license. So if you want to do both, always start with the PPL license.
Peter wrote:
fly safely, never mind usefully, in 15hrs?
As a UL flight instructor in Belgium I fully agree, and nobody in Belgium actually does the exam after 15h. Except for the few people that have a lot of experience flying with there father or friends for years, for example. But again, even if you do your exam with very few hours, you’ll probably also have 45h until you can do everything a PPL pilot can do.
For example in Belgium you need to fly 30 HOURS solo before you can take passengers. I think the 30h solo are rather useless and should be replaced by some mandatory dual training. In my experience the pilots fly the 30hours very close to the home airport and with the basic type they did the training in (because they have no experience yet in longer navigations and more advanced types), so they almost learn nothing. While they could use the hours to fly longer navs together with the flight instructor or to train on more advanced ultralights. Right now, a lot of pilots don’t want to do more dual training because they want to get the solo hours asap.
Note: Also in Belgium the radio license is not part of the practical exam like it is for the PPL license, you need to do another exam (in Brussels) to get the radio license. So actually this part is more complicated than it is for the PPL license.
OK let me try a different angle
Is it possible to do the 15 (or whatever) microlight training hours and then pretend the training was towards the full PPL and continue towards the PPL? That way you would in effect get the full credit. It may be possible if the flying is structured just right and the FI has the full Class 1 medical (microlight FIs don’t need that; I think in the UK they can do on just the Class 2 – or even a self declaration?) and other stuff.
As an example of something similar, I know that (in France at least) it is (was?) possible to start on the LAPL and then pretend the training was towards the full EASA PPL. This allowed the use of an FI who didn’t have the CPL theory, for the relevant part of the syllabus.
In the UK and then counting those hours towards an EASA PPL no it’s not.
Peter wrote:
Is it possible to do the 15 (or whatever) microlight training hours and then pretend the training was towards the full PPL and continue towards the PPL?
No, in Belgium you start your training with a ‘UL training license’ in a UL airplane and those hours do not count for any other license.
Peter wrote:
I know that (in France at least) it is (was?) possible to start on the LAPL and then pretend the training was towards the full EASA PPL.
I think this is still posbbile, but I guess this is mainly because training is on the same class/type of airplane. Also the instructors have the same EASA ‘FI’ rating.
Peter wrote:
FI who didn’t have the CPL theory
The theory exam for a French FI is was the PPL exam with a higher pass mark of 90%. Except I just checked and this isn’t the case any more (since 2014). Is this EASA? This is really going to reduce the number of new FIs. What’s the justification of a CPL exam for an unpaid instructeur bénévole? According to this website there is a way of getting around the CPL theory with a different exam held twice a year in Paris.
