I have recently completed NPPL(SLMG) training and paperwork shuffling. I used the cross-crediting arrangement using my gliding experience. I got caught out by a few things in the paperwork exercise which might catch others, so I’m making a note of them here. I’m also noting down other aspects of my experience, in case it’s useful to others.
Once I had corrected these things, the LAA were happy to accept my application by email. Given that my paper application was lost in the post, I would recommend scanning and emailing everything to the LAA office. Definitely don’t send original documents!
I can’t fault the LAA. They followed the rules and were extremely helpful in helping me to complete the application.
Update: I’ve since tried to send an NPPL(SSEA) application to the LAA and they advised me over the phone that they would definitely not accept an application by email, even to add a rating. Your mileage may vary.
I learned to fly in a Scheibe SF-25C Falke at Portmoak in Scotland. There are motorglider instructors on site but no examiners. The closest examiner is in England, so for now it’s impossible to get the NPPL(SLMG) in Scotland unless you can convince an examiner to travel north! I ended up doing the theory tests at Portmoak and then flying to Milfield for the skills tests. Flying to another site was great fun (I had to take a friend with me to act as PIC) but the round-trip interspersed with the actual tests was really tiring.
Actually learning to fly the Falke was great fun. It’s a bit strange at first because trimming is essential but the trimmer is a bit sticky so you can’t get fine control like in most gliders, so that saps a lot of head space. Landing is also a fine art: Touch down with slightly too much speed and she will zebedee back into the air… However, once it’s flying it’s just like a wooden glider with a few more levers to fiddle with.
I didn’t need a paper log book. The LAA were happy to accept a printout of my logspreadsheet signed by an examiner. The ten hour minimum easily fits into what you will actually do in instruction and in solo flying to get yourself confident to do the flying tests, at least they were for me. If you’re ready, put yourself forward for the tests before you reach ten hours, as you can count the NST and GST as PIC U/S (pilot in command under supervision) towards the ten hours.
I regretted not having a GPS log of my flights. Logging the time (engine time, airframe time, pilot logbook time) is important but there just isn’t time to do it in amongst all the other stuff. If, like me, you’re not used to keeping track of the time while flying gliders, you’ll find it very easy to forget. If I were doing it again I would regularly download my flights from the FLARM or make a habit of running something like XCSoar on my phone whilst flying. This would be handy to be able to look back and remember what each flight involved and would help with working out the time spent in the air or taxiing. Some people recommend taking a GoPro, or similar, with an adapter to plug into the headset system. I didn’t find this necessary, since if you can already fly there isn’t that much that’s completely new.
In terms of logging, gliders (hopefully!) do one landing per flight, but power pilots are interested in knowing how many landings they do in a sortie. This is important for currency (3 landings in last 90 days is a common rule) so if you make your own electronic logbook don’t forget to include a column for number of landings.
Learning to fly in the Falke was pretty cheap.
I was a bit unlucky, since I joined the syndicate, started paying the £27/month and the airfield almost immediately became waterlogged and nobody flew for 3 months. After everything dried out I did most of the flying training in about 3-4 months (with occasional rained off days, aircraft unavailable, instructor unavailable, or whatever) and then had a 6 month break while I was busy with other stuff and panicking about failing the navigation theory test for the third time: If you fail a third time, you have to go to Gatwick and sit a special exam made just for you. After I passed the test I got myself current again and then did a NST which I had to abandon because it started raining. Then my luck picked up, and I was able to complete the skills tests in a day.
So after all that, a probably reasonable estimate to get an NPPL(SLMG) at Portmoak as a glider pilot is around £1489 (or £2839 if you include the capital in your share).
Now as soon as the postman returns my hard-earned licence I can go and have some fun in my new toy!
Bruce Duncan 2017-07-14