PPL enhancement: what are the options?

Since your English is good, consider a trip to the US. That will really give you a totally new perspective on GA flying. In a two-week timeframe, you could:

-do the FAA PPL (either the “fake” one or the real one)
-try different kinds of airplanes (complex, taildragger, etc. and even twin) without going bankrupt
-do some incredible night flying, without any kinds of limitation
-do a short tour of maybe 3-4 days and see some great sights (especially out west)
-try instrument flying
-etc.

Well done on getting your FCL 055

I think you could have a lot of fun, and add some valuable skills, by doing some differences training – retractable, high performance, EFIS…go get your hands on a taildragger (a nice little Jodel?), do some aerobatics…try some of the newer composite aircraft? You might need to join other clubs in the vicinity to get access to other options but I think it would be a good investment. Better than doing MEP training, anyway.

Have fun with the night flying – a great way to sharpen up your flying without spending huge amounts.

After I got my PPL in 1994 I did …

… the Multiengine Rating in 1996
… CVFR and Night Rating in 1996
…Aerobatic Rating in 2000
… IFR in 2002
… and the Class Rating Instructor Rating (CRI) in 2005

Of all those Ratings the AEROBATIC rating was the one that taught me most about flying. It was not overly expensive, it was around € 2000 for one week of training plus the check flight.

Compared to the IFR rating that felt mostly like work (the theory and the simulator flying were really tough) the Aerobatic rating was excitement and fun and i think it very much improved my piloting skills.

MEP? really only if you need it. Mine is not valid anymore, because it was just too expensive. At my airport 40 year old Seneca is + 500 Euro/h … it was a good experience, but I’ll never need it again

You are in the département de Berre (or, at least, your indicated homefield is) – is there no seaplane training on the Étang de Berre, or is that a thing from the distant past?

[[edit: sorry, it’s not the département that is named Berre, rather the aerodrome, or nearby city ]]

If you have a “tech brain” and like technical challenges, get some instrument instruction.

It doesn’t have to be the full official finished IR. (In the UK there is the IMC Rating as a halfway option but its IFR privileges are good only within the UK.)

If you get some instrument training, from a pilot who does it for real, you will become a much safer VFR pilot because you will be able to navigate properly, won’t be spooked by a bit of cloud or haze, and (with a suitably careful weather appreciation) will be able to fly above a solid overcast.

The best summers tend to have low vis – sometimes down to 3000m or even 2000m – and a purely VFR pilot simply cannot fly in that because while it may be legally VFR, it is effectively instrument flight.

If you look at my early VFR trips here … I would have never dared to do them if I could not have flown and navigated on instruments.

And then, if you later want the full IR, you won’t find it hard because you will already know the basics. Most purely-VFR pilots find IR training a very steep learning curve. You need to be a very good VFR pilot before you can start it, but you probably won’t be a very good VFR pilot if you have zero appreciation of instrument flight, because the two are not separate things (the VFR-IFR separation is rather artificial).

MEP is a complete waste of time unless you have a very specific set of objectives, and IMHO owning a twin must be one of them. Then it makes sense. When I got my PPL in 2001, everybody was asking when I would do my twin rating, but that has almost died out, due to many factors starting with the cost of fuel.

With all due respect to my fellow forumites, I think you’d be better off forgetting about formal training for a bit.

100 hours solo, while not insignificant, isn’t a huge amount of time, and probably means that you haven’t travelled all that far. Probably a lot of visits to local airfields with friends and family.

I think you’d be well served by doing a few longer trip, if you haven’t already done so, pushing further and further away from home and into a many different countries a you can afford in your budget. Remember to visit large and small aerodrome to make sure you don’t end up nervous of one or the other (quite common for people to fear one or the other, because they rarely visit them). It might not be formal training, and might not add any writing to your licence, but it will help to make you a much more rounded and experienced pilot.

It’s much better in my opinion than adding a rating or qualification that you’ll never use again after the skills test

Would agree that MEP is not a worthwhile investment unless you plan to be a CPL.

Travelling further afield and mixing it between larger and smaller airports is good advice. Use conservative VMC criteria and be prepared to wait out poor conditions. If you give yourself a week or more, you can search out good weather, and avoid poor weather. Does mean your route has to be flexible. Think like a barnstormer: they understood the need to wait out poor conditions.

The airplane manufacturers in the 1960’s tried to sell GA as a reliable IFR business tool – you will note that today 95% of corporate flight departments operate multi-crew turbine. That may be partly for insurance reasons, or reflects a true Darwinian evolution since the trilby wearing 60’s business pilot marketing days. The light end of GA is OK for light IFR.

Investing in further reading on Meteorology and Principles of Flight never goes amiss. Lots of good literature out there: Weather Flying (Buck), Stick and Rudder (Langewiesche).

Flying older tail wheel types will give you a better appreciation of needing to co ordinate controls – modern aircraft have managed to design out some of the lessons the older aircraft imparted.

It would also prepare you to fly aircraft like the CAP10 or Stampe – and into aerobatics, although aeros are not everyone’s cup of tea. Getting a mountain rating is another option in France, which typically is done in a tail wheel aircraft.

Forget the MEP, an expensive itch best not scratched.
I thoroughly recommend advanced skills training if you have someone in your area that offers it. In the UK we have a company called Ultimate High who I’ve done spin and aero training with and the skills I learnt have probably saved my life recently (after entering an inadvertent spin).
Instrument training, as Peter suggests, would also be high on my list of recommendations, it really does make you a more rounded pilot and definitely do some long distance travelling ASAP. Once you get this under your belt then the whole of Europe becomes one big exciting playground.

Enjoy!

Also:
Beware of pilots who do more talking than flying…………

I’d Echo what Dublinpilot says, do things within your current skillset but just push it a bit further. You will learn a hell of a lot planning say a four hour trip from one country to another, and not just how to use software, but what are the best charts to buy (what’s good / bad about each flavour of them), how to file and activate a flight plan, how you might be handed over from different ATC stations, how to not need a number 1 or a number 2 for 4 hours without dehydrating – there’s endless things you can learn just by going further. The best thing to learn is how to use different pieces of software / information to work out all the weather around you, and whether a PROB30 TSRA is just that or a PROB0 – things that will aid your go/no-go decisions practicably.

In the Uk, the IMCr (IR/R) is often the thing that most PPL’s aim for next but in Europe I am not sure the IR/R is available, only the en-route instrument rating, or the full one. But what Peter said is right, having practical exposure to instrument flight conditions could well be a life saver one day.