What does a LAPL allow?
The privileges of a Light Aircraft Pilot’s Licence (LAPL) are to act as Pilot in Command of a non-complex single engine piston aeroplane with a Maximum Take-off Weight below 2000 Kg by day in visual flight conditions only. Up to a maximum of 3 passengers may be carried, giving a maximum number of people onboard of 4 in total.
The LAPL is recognised in the United Kingdom and in Europe but not internationally. The licence was created within the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) as an attempt to bring together a group of European National Pilots Licences under one licence structure, and the resulting licence has not been recognised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
If you do not intend flying outside of the United Kingdom or Europe, then this really does not matter; however, if you want to progress your flying career, a PPL will likely be the better option.
Who can hold a LAPL?
The minimum age to hold a LAPL is 17.
You will need a hold a Part Med LAPL medical certificate which can be issued by an Aeromedical Examiner (AME) or sometimes by your GP. Please see CAP 1127P which details the process by which your GP might be able to issue a medical certificate.
http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP%201127%20P%20LAPL%20Quick%20Guide%20for%20Pilots.pdf
As you can see there are a quite a lot of circumstances in which your GP would not be able issue the medical certificate and as a result you might have to have your medical issued directly by an AME.
An advantage of a LAPL medical is that it is regulated to a slightly lower standard than the Class Two medical which is required for a Private Pilot’s Licence (PPL). This means that some people who cannot reach the standards required for a Class Two medical can continue to fly if they can reach the lower standard required for a LAPL medical.
To apply for a LAPL you will need a minimum of 30 hours total flight training composed of not less than 15 hours dual with an instructor and 6 hours solo, 3 hours of which will be solo cross country, and 1 hour’s instrument flying. You will need to complete a solo qualifying cross country flight of at least 80 nautical miles, with at least one full stop landing at an airfield other than your departure airfield. You will have to pass the nine written exams in common with the PPL, the Radio Telephony (RT) practical exam in common with the PPL, and at the end of the course pass a Flying Skills Test which is also identical to the PPL.
What are the advantages of the LAPL?
The real advantage of the LAPL is the lower medical standard to which it is regulated providing a useful licence for an experienced PPL to drop back down to in the event of a reduction in medical fitness which prevents the continued holding of a Class Two medical certificate.
Another advantage of the LAPL is that the minimum training requirements can be met with 15 hours less training than for the PPL and this brings the possibility of a considerable cost saving. As an initial issue Licence, it works perfectly for a very significantly above average student who can complete the training in the minimum hours and reach Flying Skills Test standard in those minimum hours, and who also has no aspiration at all to add further ratings or fly internationally in the future.
The LAPL is also a great licence for those who are no longer able to fully meet Class Two medical requirements but wishing to continue to fly and for those much less fortunate who have a desire to fly but who could never reach the Class Two medical standards and so might have been prevented from starting flight training. In this respect the LAPL is a brilliant progressive Licence a breath of pragmatic fresh air to general aviation, and we are incredibly grateful for this aspect of it.
The LAPL is also reasonable proposition for a student with a particular aptitude for flying, who is happy to restrict their flying to the local area, in simple aeroplanes, in good weather, and who has the natural gift to be able to complete training substantially quicker than most people. In practice, anyone with that level of natural ability might very well want to take their flying further, in which case they will soon find themselves on the LAPL to PPL upgrade course and wondering why they did not simply have a PPL issued in the first place.
What are the limitations of the LAPL?
The main limitation of the LAPL is that other than a night rating or aerobatics rating, additional ratings cannot be added to the LAPL so if you intend to fly internationally or aspire to gain a Commercial Pilot’s Licence (CPL) or Instrument Rating (IR) in the future then the Private Pilot’s Licence would be the best choice for you. Converting a LAPL to a PPL at a future point is not too onerous and so even if you might eventually seek to gain a CPL or an IR in the future there is still potentially some merit in starting of initially with a LAPL rather than a PPL.
To an extent the minimum 30 hours of training needed for a LAPL is being used by flight schools to showcase a theoretically possible lower cost route to achieve a pilot’s licence but unless you happen to be very gifted and able to practice flying several days a week, it is somewhat unrealistic. Since it takes 60 hours to achieve a PPL on average, it is unusual to achieve a LAPL in 30 hours: it would be disingenuous for a flight school to claim otherwise while pointing to the lower training costs that are probably going to be exceeded quite significantly.
Maintaining the validity of a LAPL has a trap for the unwary. Within the last previous two years on a rolling 24-month basis a pilot must have completed at least 12 hours of solo flying or dual flying with an instructor to include 12 take off and landings. At least 1 hour of flight time must be dual refresher training with an instructor. There is no requirement for a revalidation certificate to be signed every 24 months as with a PPL. But the trap is this: with a PPL to maintain validity the 12 hours can be completed at any time within the 24-month period of validity of the single engine piston rating. With the LAPL there is no rating as such and no requirement for the rating page to be revalidated every 24 months by an examiner. However, there is a requirement to maintain 12 hours currency on each 24-month rolling basis and if you fail to do that and you fly you are not properly licensed and you have no insurance whatsoever. A PPL pilot could theoretically fly no hours for 23 months and then fly 12 hours in the last month of the period of validity of their rating and then have an examiner re-sign their ratings page for a further 24 months. A LAPL cannot do this and must look back at every 24-month block of time as each day passes to ensure that 12 hours has been flown and 12 take-offs and landings completed and a refresher flight with an instructor completed in the last 24 months. It would be extremely easy to muck this up and inadvertently find yourself airborne with an invalid licence. It is much easier to have a period of validity for a rating in your licence defined by an end date which acts as a call to action to maintain validity than to have a continuous rolling requirement that could so easily be missed. Confused by this? You are not alone, and it is a nasty trap!
How does getting a LAPL compare to getting a PPL?
The average student in the United Kingdom takes about 60 hours of training to reach the standard required for the PPL skills test and so although the minimum flight training specified for a LAPL is only 30 hours it would be unusual for a student to reach the Flying Skills test standard in the minimum 30 hours of training.
In practice, although the PPL will take extra time compared with a LAPL, the written exams are identical to the LAPL, the RT practical exam identical to the LAPL and the Flying Skills Test identical to the LAPL. I can see little to no point in applying for a LAPL as opposed to applying for a PPL, as the PPL is globally recognised and has the future proof option of adding a much wider variety of additional ratings, making it the much better licence long term.