Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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By carlmeek
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1694562
I'm hoping to do my FI Pre-Entry flight test on Tuesday, so I shall ask about this. I have no doubt the CPL TKs are O.T.T. for someone who shall never become a CPL - I would be quite happy being an FI(R) / CRI - teaching Microlight primarily but would be nice for the CRI part to extend that a bit further.

Does anyone know how common Ab-Initio LAPL is? I personally did one due to a medical reason, but I imagine they are fairly rare?
#1694565
Two schools close to.me only offer the LAPL and that's because they have insufficient instructors with CPL TK to teach for the PPL.

Another nearby school who vehemently refused to emply LAPL FI's have just employed one and are for the first time offering the LAPL. They simply couldn't find any FI's with CPL TK.
#1694568
Bathman wrote:Two schools close to.me only offer the LAPL and that's because they have insufficient instructors with CPL TK to teach for the PPL

I might have missed something in the thread, and I'm losing the plot here, but do I, as an ex-BCPL/FI (now PPL/FI) without CPL TK, still have legacy rights to teach PPL? (There is no 'For LAPL only' condition on my licence)
#1694570
I don't think anyone at my flying club has ever taken a LAPL. It is always offered as an option but as soon as someone sees that they have to do 10 hours solo after obtaining their licence the general feeling is "what's the point in that, I may as well do the full PPL".

The 10 hour's post-test solo must be one of the illogical rules EASA has thought up. If you're not safe enough to take a passenger, are you really safe enough to fly on your own?
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By muffin
FLYER Club Member (reader)  FLYER Club Member (reader)
#1694575
Just a comment on the pay differential aspect of this discussion,

I have both fixed wing and rotary LAPLs. The fixed wing one requires an “instructor hour” every two years and the rotary one every year. By coincidence both became due a couple of weeks ago. Using my own aircraft in both cases, the rotary instructor cost me £100 and the fixed wing £30. I assume both are market rates?
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1694600
I think it would be worth all chipping in and sponsoring wannabes on FI programmes in a couple of easa countries that I can think of, on condition they reported everything that did (and more importantly, didn't) happen in detail on their route to an FI rating. I suspect there would be some pretty angry instructors over here when they did. Mind you, we might be morally required to shell out even more afterwards to bring the wannabes up to scratch to teach over here.
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By carlmeek
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1694618
I’m starting my FI course this week and on the fence about the CPL TKs. I just chatted to the school and they recommend you do them.

They said that you have to use a proper ground school course and then book exams with the CAA. This appears to add £1500+ bill on top of CAA exam fees. Is this really mandatory? If not, I would have just self studied and made heavy use of question banks.
#1694634
Bathman wrote:I certainly know people who on completion of the FI rating and met the requirements for issue of a CRI got both issued.

However I have since been told by an FIC that a FI rating now contains inbuilt CRI privileges. I wasn't so sure so if anyone could confirm it would be appreciated.


It does - eg as FIs we don’t need a CRI to teach the SEP rating or you can add MEP instructional privileges to an FI without needing a standalone CRI - but the issue is the supervisory requirement. Hold a stand-alone CRI and you can do a lot without needing supervision.
#1694636
Talkdownman wrote:
Bathman wrote:Two schools close to.me only offer the LAPL and that's because they have insufficient instructors with CPL TK to teach for the PPL

I might have missed something in the thread, and I'm losing the plot here, but do I, as an ex-BCPL/FI (now PPL/FI) without CPL TK, still have legacy rights to teach PPL? (There is no 'For LAPL only' condition on my licence)


Yes ex BCPL had grandfather rights on conversion to EASA
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#1694637
carlmeek wrote:I’m starting my FI course this week and on the fence about the CPL TKs. I just chatted to the school and they recommend you do them.

They said that you have to use a proper ground school course and then book exams with the CAA. This appears to add £1500+ bill on top of CAA exam fees. Is this really mandatory? If not, I would have just self studied and made heavy use of question banks.


Carl - yes you have to do an approved groundschool course with some mandatory attendance

IMHO, there is significant urban myth about ‘you can just smash the question banks and get through’ - in my experience there is no way anyone can pass without a degree of guided study, actual understanding of the topics and some reinforcement in a face to face environment. More recent people like @jaycee58 might have a view?
User avatar
By T67M
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1694639
I can't speak for the CPL TK, but I am reliably informed that some PPL students are now "smashing the question bank" for the PPL exams, including one recently who had a complete set of passes in all ground exams from another school but claimed they had never heard of QNH.
By PaulB
#1694642
derekf wrote:One of the lowest cost option with a lot of self study is CAPT (who I did my ATPLs with recently) - see http://capt.gs/courses.html#CPLA.
There was a chap on my ground school who had FI and wanted to get CPL TK - seemed to do it quite quickly...


It's not just money, though..... It's the time and energy and effort that you have to expend learning something that, albeit interesting in its own right, you're never ever going to use in your future practice.

There's a post on here from someone who found out to their cost that the Nav part of CPL TK was almost entirely jet based. How ridiculous is that? ... and how irrelevant to being a PPL/LAPL/SEP FI.
#1694645
carlmeek wrote:I’m starting my FI course this week and on the fence about the CPL TKs. I just chatted to the school and they recommend you do them.

They said that you have to use a proper ground school course and then book exams with the CAA. This appears to add £1500+ bill on top of CAA exam fees. Is this really mandatory? If not, I would have just self studied and made heavy use of question banks.


You have to be registered with a training provider as you cannot book any exams until you've done this (the system won't let you). In addition, you must complete all the compulsory progress tests given to you by your provider as part of the course, some of which are very time consuming (and there's a lot of them...I'd guess 175-200, possibly more) and you must complete the ground school, which in my case was three four-day classroom sessions. I guess there's a total number of classroom hours required but I'm not sure what it is.

There have apparently been cases of people taking exams without doing the ground school and then having the CAA cancel all their exam results. Generally though, I believe the training providers in the UK won't let it get that far. They are regularly audited and, in addition, I believe the CAA have access to all my progress test results at any time.
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