License / rating expiry

It would be good to have a dedicated thread on this topic, because it comes up often.

I’ve been talking to a pilot today who may leave Europe and was wondering how much of his European papers will be permanently lost, in the sense of having to re-do the exams. AFAIK -

UK NPPL – never expires but needs the class rating renewed with a test flight
UK IMCR / IR(R) – as above
EASA LAPL – as above
EASA PPL – as above
EASA CPL – ???
EASA IR – exams expire after 7 years but this is extended indefinitely if you have been flying with a valid ICAO (e.g. FAA) IR
EASA FI – the FI is country specific I think
EASA FE – likewise
Mountain rating – ??

Is the above correct? Please add info on the others.

Various previous threads e.g. here but there have been recent changes on the IR expiry, where ATO “retraining” will be formally avoided by EASA FCL if you hold an ICAO IR.

I left out the EASA ATPL because the only way to get that is to get a CPL/IR (a so-called “frozen ATPL”) and then log 500hrs in a multi pilot cockpit, so this is not applicable to GA (other than AOC bizjet ops I guess).

Mandatory PBN training (merged)

EASA NPA for PBN

here

I think the most relevant-to-IFR-GA issues are

• it is proposed to remove the need for operational approval (i.e. no FAA PRNAV LOA, and no EASA PRNAV aircraft approval) (page 87 of the PDF, for example)

• it is proposed to make mandatory some ground school for all types of GPS approaches, including for existing IR holders (page 15 of the PDF)

I don’t know if the mandatory course duration is mentioned in the document.

If there are any issues with sorting out the mandatory training, people will do what they have always done: fly the NDB/DME approach, but using the GPS That’s what I was doing before I got this piece of paper. Flying conventional-navaid approaches requires no special training! I guess the mandatory training proposition is based on the fact that the standard JAA IR contains navaid approaches but no GPS approaches, and no PBN concepts (whatever that is in the light GA context??).

I think this is all due in 2016.

If you were to upgrade, what to (and what from) and why?

Assume you can afford the next step-up only.

I would go for a Jetprop. It offers a real increase in capability – 260kt TAS at FL260 – and not just an incremental one which say an SR22 would offer.