National Private Pilots Licence (NPPL)

The Flying Course. The format of the NPPL We teach you how to control the aeroplane, to fly straight and level, to climb, descend and turn, to recover from slow speed, take-off fly a circuit and land.
Part of the syllabus is solo flight, the course require 10 hours of solo flight, so your initial training is aimed at getting you to fly the aeroplane on your own, for your First Solo, Exercise 14, a major achievement. There will then be a certain amount of consolidation in the circuit before you move on to advanced manoeuvres and navigation.
Once you get to the navigation stages you will be flying to other airfields, covering distances that you perhaps wouldn’t consider possible in such a short space of time. Because these flights are longer than the previous lessons your hours will build up very quickly and before you know it, it will be time for your test.
The test is nothing to be alarmed about, it covers all of what you have been taught throughout the training syllabus and your instructor will not present you for the test if he does not have confidence in your ability. To get to the test stage you will need to have covered a minimum of 32 hours for the NPPL

The NPPL test is separated into the general handling and the navigation flight test.

With the NPPL you are restricted to flight in the UK only, and you cannot fly in controlled airspace. There is quite a lot of controlled airspace in the UK so you are quite limited with the NPPL. The JAR/PPL on the other hand allows you to fly to Europe and the Channel Islands, as well as any country that is part of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

So there you are, application in and a pilots licence in the hand. You can now authorise yourself to fly and hire an aeroplanes to fly where you wish with Visual Flight Rules (VFR). You can take friends and family with you to share the cost, and fly competition or pleasure, after all, you’re now an aviator.