Peter wrote:
How does the microlight PPL syllabus compare with the EASA PPL syllabus?
My youngest son took the theory a month ago. They use the same books as PPL, but not everything is syllabus. No instrument flying theory whatsoever for instance, and regulations are obviously different. Medical stuff is also different. Flying is only 25h, but you cannot take on passengers before 50h as PIC (or was it total?). Very much like PPL, only shortened. Radio telephony is a separate course, and not mandatory (unless you are going to use the radio).
How does the microlight PPL syllabus compare with the EASA PPL syllabus?
Too many errors in one question to even begin answering it.
microlight PPL is a contradiction in terminis
the one syllabus can never be, every european country has its own regulations
And I managed to obtain my BE ULM license without consulting any syllabus whatsoever.
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
And I managed to obtain my BE ULM license without consulting any syllabus whatsoever.
I did too, but then I had a PPL. It depends what you mean by syllabus. The CAA has no syllabus regarding microlight, but the microlight organisation has a recommended set of books, and these books are the same books as used for the PPL. Why reinvent the wheel? You could of course simply take the PPL theory and all the exams, only it costs 10x as much, at least. How exactly this is organized varies wildly from instructor to instructor, club to club. My son took the theory it at my club. They had proper class room instructions, 30-40 hours in total and proper exams where you have to pass or do it again. Others have nothing, just some chit chatting and a quiz. The radio exam is the same as the one taken for PPL, and is organized by LT.
I’m looking into this for my daughter (14). I have an Italian registered Avid 4 (from Slovenia) and fly it in Belgium using my French microlight licence! Got to love that mix…
As I understand it, she can start training now, and get a restricted licence at 15 (no passengers, and not further than 30km from departure airfield). Then she can do another test and have both these limitations removed (I just haven’t found if there is also an age limitation on making it a full licence).
Is this the lowest age limit in the world?
Cheers, Sam.
Quite remarkable this accident rates for US LSA. I wonder about the accident rates for EU Microlights are similar. It doesn’t seem to be from what I have seen (but don’t remember). The accident rates themselves is one thing, but what is even more strange is the pilots are mostly experienced (commercial, military) with an average flying experience of 2200+ hours, often in heavy steel.
Having experience with both microlight and SEPs, I agree with some of the commenters below the video. Learn to land the damned airplane!!! Light and simple does not mean it’s easier to fly than a SEP. I wouldn’t say harder exactly, but they are a different. low inertia, low wing loading and high maneuverability and lots of power to weight is what characterize them. What you need is stick and rudder skill, not “procedure” skill. Thousands of hours in a jet or TP won’t help you one bit in this regard, and IMO this is what the statistics show. Still, rather strange the whole thing.
That’s a really interesting video.
LSAs having a 6x higher fatal accident rate than GA average, despite average 2.5k TT of the pilots (which suggests a lot of airline pilots, perhaps retired ones), and a lot of them being landing accidents points to flimsy construction because landing accidents are rarely fatal in broad GA.
Pretty much the same is true for German ULM, although there is no flight time record to base the rates on. It’s 4-5 times higher per registered aircraft and 2-3 times higher per pilots license in Germany. The french talk about 8-10 times higher accident rates for ULM in france. I’d have to look for the link, in where it was explained, though.
In the US, new production LSA aircraft are flown (I think mainly flown) by older pilots who can under FAA regs fly them using their driver’s license as a medical. It seems to me those pilots for differing reasons are often reluctant to ‘start at the beginning’ and learn to fly a new and different type of aircraft via practice and maneuvers.
If you broaden the discussion to certified types that can flown by FAA Light Sport pilots, I think an older pilot who has flown larger 1950s-on nose wheel aircraft for years is highly unlikely to adapt to many of them successfully. That is as much as anything else related to lack of interest once they find out what’s necessary through experience.
I’ve just converted from a Jodel DR1050 taildragger to a Bolkow BO208 Junior nose wheel, with no instruction. I notice a much quicker loss of speed in the flare, although the landing mass of the aircraft are not dissimilar. The Bolkow is much easier to taxi in a crosswind, but the touchdown in a crosswind doesn’t seem easier so far, although it has a much higher limit.
Peter wrote:
LSAs having a 6x higher fatal accident rate than GA average, despite average 2.5k TT of the pilots (which suggests a lot of airline pilots, perhaps retired ones), and a lot of them being landing accidents points to flimsy construction because landing accidents are rarely fatal in broad GA.
It’s 5 to 6 for both overall and fatal, so I wouldn’t draw such a conclusion. It’s more that it’s during landing and take off that the characteristics of LSA/microlight really shows. In any other flight regime they are more or less the same. You can screw it up much more in a light airplane than a slightly heavier one. But, the numbers are small in the US. In Europe there are much more microlights than there are LSA in the US. European numbers are probably better, but harder to find.
