Hello and help! (PPL or LAPL or UL)

When it comes to what type of license to get UL or PPL (or LAPL), I would investigate which training facilities there are close to me and how they are.
That investigation could make the decision which license to get easier.
It could be that the closest PPL school only has run down old planes with scheduling constraints.. Or, the UL school has too few flight instructors and are run by weird people… Or maybe it takes too long to drive to the place that has PPL training…

Peter wrote:

I suggest you review your posting style

Honestly, when reading this: “anything short of the full ICAO PPL is a dead end” it is not clear to me what kind of style you want around here. Short of? I started with gliders at 16, PPL 10 years later, microlight 15 years after that again. Today I get to fly, for free, much more than I possibly have time for (right now, very little regrettably). Obviously it is towing gliders, which is not the most glamorous flying you can do. But it is fun, great community, and there are no other kind of flying where you can hone your basic stick and rudder flying skills like towing gliders in the mountains. It was not my ICAO PPL that enabled me to get into that, lots of people with PPL around. It was, at that time, tail wheel rating and glider experience. They wanted someone who knew gliders and gliding operations and could jump into a Piper Pawnee with no extra fuzz. Today we use a microlight, a WT9 Dynamic, and cutting off 140 HP and 400 kg does not make it easier to tow a 750+ kg glider in mountain rotors (but it gets 5-10 times cheaper for the club, which equates to more flying, better gliders). Today a PPL won’t do you much good, but glider experience and a microlight license will.

There are many people like me, some with much more experience, military pilots, commercial airline pilots, commercial helicopter pilots, instructors. The thing we have in common is we fly lots of different stuff, several licenses, several ratings. It makes no difference what you start with, often it is gliders or microlight, but it could also be the Air Force academy or some ATPL thing (none are ICAO PPL by the way). A PPL is just one of many other ways to get into flying as a hobby.

If you want to fly lots and lots fast, you have to do what it takes to become a tow pilot and/or lifting skydivers. Gliders you can start at 14. From gliders to microlight is easy, and before you are 18 you will be able to fly your pants off towing and gliding paying nothing. By then you are a much better pilot than most PPL instructors and will get the PPL in no time and can start flying TP lifting skydivers and flying all over the world while doing it. Very few are that dedicated, and the ones that are, usually ends up flying military/commercially instead, but it is possible.

In the end, what decides are the local availability of schools/clubs, instructors, aircraft, airfields and of course time and money. You do what is available and what suits your schedule and wallet. But, a PPL is no more door opener than other stuff. It’s the combination of things that creates possibilities and experience. On the other hand, if the only thing you want, is to fly a SR22 with your wife and your dog on trips around Europe, then taking glider lessons is not exactly an effective approach. It’s just that the non commercial aviation community is vastly larger and includes a world of cool things besides SR22 from A to B.

A lot of what you say is true and I fully accept you have a lot of fun but my advice was based on somebody who is just starting and wants the best options. Not someone like you who has already done so much but flies in an aviation niche, especially a Norwegian aviation niche which is so obviously so different from central Europe, from where there is a lot more flying away. Especially as the OP obviously speaks great English so won’t feel limited by that, in the way that so many European pilots do.

The OP may well prefer the UL scene but starting with a PPL is the best option (with the caveats already mentioned by others eg access).

He is hardly going to be glider towing! Not till much later.

BTW I don’t fly an SR22 and don’t have a dog or a wife

@Anders: that is a good remark but it does not apply in this specific case. On the one hand the LAPL is (as yet, and perhaps forever) a non-starter; on the other hand there are plenty of opportunities for the topic starter both for PPL and for microlight training, well withing reasonable driving distance.

I think it would help to look back at the requirements set forth in post #1. Flying to different countries with passengers (at the moment, 1 is enough) and baggage.

I would say given this information, a lot of things written here aren’t wrong – just not relevant to the question that was asked.

The OP certainly does seem to want to fly internationally, with passengers, but I think LeSving makes some good points. Life and flying is not about which piece of paper you have, or how your activity is viewed by others. Life is in reality a journey not a pre-planned mission. Some of the absolute best pilots I know started with hang gliders, or unlicensed teenage flying of rebuilt ultralights. Also those who rebuild aircraft or “lie on their back working on their 1969 MGB” may not lack “wealth”, or be at all limited in what they do in their flying. They may just find it the best way get what they want and to be free of money and business related nonsense.

Otherwise, I am reminded as usual in these threads that the culture or adopted culture of contributors is usually as much a factor in opinions as their individual circumstances… UK posters so often see everything in divisive social class terms, German culture posters tend to want detailed regulations as guidance etc. Those who have adopted or are peripherally involved with a culture are more obvious in this tendency, as in British colonials being ‘more British than the British’. (Speaking for myself I am particularly bothered about government intrusion into my life… probably because I became an American by choice )

That’s deeper philosophy, Silvaire, not really what this forum is about. That said, there’s a few words there that I’ll think over a couple of times.

Just as a petty detail: in the phrase about “colonials” you might perhaps have left out the “British” bit – I have remarkably similar impressions of Belgian colonials. In fact I think a British colonial might be a colonial first, and only a Brit after that… but that discussion would get us even further off-topic.

But to come back on topic or at least on forum territory: we are as yet very far away from one single European culture. In Europe as a whole, and even on this forum in particular. The notorious lack of Italian participants here is a sign on the wall. Mind you, some have tried.

Since the Italian language is (sad to say) the only non-English language with which I have much hope of communicating clearly, it would surely be nice to see more Italian posters and in particular some discussion on the vibrant Italian UL scene. I’ve met quite of number of Italian UL pilots and they seem to have a really good time flying around within their country. If I were in Italy specifically, the Italian UL license is the way I’d pursue flying.

@Jamie, it seems you have not set in stone, what you seek in aviation. Based on this assumption I can only recommend to train at least for the LAPL. Here is why:

Today, and for the forseeable future, microlights and heavier aircraft are divided into two more or less separate systems of licensing for pilots, flying schools, maintenance and manufacturing companies, aswell as aircraft certification. Since the physics and airspace is the same, this division is, of course, completely nonsensical and not based on any logic, other than that most microlight associations fight hard to keep their competences in licensing the pilots and planes. Their reluctance to engange in any form of standidization discussion during the European harmonization of aviation led to the exclusion of microlight flight time towards the european pilot licenses. Now the associations, however, do need the occasional microlight flyers to maintain their licenses and worked for national regulations to accept normal SEP hours for the microlight license. This imbalance was largely driven by the german and french associations.

What does this mean for you then?
Microlight flying impose huge restrictions on the pilot. He has to check rules for crossing inner-european borders, has to extra check if he likes to charter a plane aboard, is usually massively restricted in payload (in average you need to be okay with 150 to 190 kg useful load including all fuel), no night flying, no IFR and no aerobatics. Usually these restrictions are okay if you travel allone or take someone around the hatch once in a while (or if you and your company are small humans). So if you find out after obtaining the microlight license and flying for some time, that you aren’t happy in this restrictions you might want to update. But there is no credit for your experience in a microlight and you have to do the complete syllabus all over to get to the LAPL or PPL. We currently have tow students with this “problem”.

On the other hand, if you hold a LAPL or PPL, you can get your microlight license usually with an hour or so instruction time. So you might say it is included in the LAPL or PPL.

The LAPL does not expire (the PPL doesn’t expire, too, but the Class Rating does) and should you find that microlights are all you need you essentially haven’t lost anything, in contrast to the other way round. If you want to keep your LAPL/PPL active with just microlight flight time you need to fly a test with an examiner for an hour or so. (Basically similar to the british BFR, just with a FE/CRE).

So the LAPL/PPL offers all worlds and the microlight license just a very limited part with more hurdles to upgrade. Plus you have much easier access to other adventures in flying like Gliders and Motorgliders, IFR and VFR night flying (one of the most beautiful things you can do in your life), aerobatics, seaplane flying, twins and the like.

You can easily start instructions for the LAPL and later switch to PPL as the initial lessons are identical. And you can do your theoretical knowledge tests in english. A befriendes aero club school in Nordhorn, Germany have many students who did their test in english.

Have fun in aviation!