You need to get that document from your CAA. The SA CAA will not query your CAA directly as is done by the FAA. Yes, you can get the validation done in one day if the paperwork is processed ahead of time or in several days when the paperwork still has to be processed after your check ride at the SA CAA.
172Driver, you’re certainly correct about the UK CAA.
30 days just to answer my email request (rather than the auto-reply), and min. 4 weeks for licence issues. Last year it drifted into many months for a validation request from Kenyan CAA to UK CAA, and 9 weeks to re-issue a UK EASA PPL. I’m not optimistic.
AeroPlus’ advice has been invaluable (thanks AP).
In fact, asking for a letter from the Kenyan CAA is almost certainly going to be quicker.
I validated my EASA license in october 2016 through an ATO outside of Johannesburg for this trip.
Roughly 5h of theory (including a rapid theoretical exam) (and probably 1h of just two nerds talking about planes and flying in general)
1h of flying, starting practical high DA training (Jo’burg is hot and high), general handling of the plane (not a full familiarization training, I specifically asked to fly on a PA28 for which I had all my hours to date), navigation.
1h15 of flying, more advanced maneuvers, steep turns, stalls, upset recovery, precautionary landing.
Take 2 pictures, drive to the CAA on the north side of town. Wait 1.5h in line with the papers filled-in, give the paper to an officer, wait 2.5h, papers finished. A little over a day in total.
Wonderboom is an interesting place with constant GA traffic to the lodges (during our time there, there was never less than 5 planes waiting for take-off) but no radar, so all flow control is strictly visual, PA28 and C172 with PC12s and Caravans. Learn the VRPs and practice your scan.
@Arne: things have changed since 2016. There is a verification procedure/letter from your EASA based CAA that is added on top of all the normal paperwork. The rest seems more or less correct. You can go there, do the theory (one way or the other), do a check ride, take all the documents, passport pictures and go to the SA CAA office (legalize them on the way there at any police station). Problem is now that that CAA verification letter from your own CAA is not there and you won’t get the license.
Update on validating my UK EASA PPL for the SACAA.
Last email request to UK CAA resulted in an auto-reply quoting a 9-week response time. Even if they did reply, I’d still need to transfer funds, and hope the last 9 month delay in responding to a foreign CAA would improve. I gave up.
A WhatsApp contact in the Kenyan CAA, has proved essential, and the SACAA has extracted a validation of my Kenyan PPL.
Now kicking my heels in Wonderboom. SACAA’s email system has been down this week, but they’ve confirmed my Kenyan validation, and promised to respond with a licence number so I can take my AirLaw exam, and register with a local flying school for briefings and check-ride; whether that can be in my own aircraft, or the flying school, is a moot point.
The original flying school I’d chosen, knowing their CFI, on the day of my arrival last week, set off on a flyaway, with their 9 instructors and their 9 aircraft for 5 days.
In the meantime, Export C of A inspection was completed on my 182 a fortnight ago, inc. test flight, but all documents have been ‘lost’ by the SACAA inspector. I foresee an indeterminate delay on the horizon. Weather to the north, back to Nairobi, starting to deteriorate. I’m considering whether to leave for Kenya and negotiate the Export C of A from there.
If you are still interested, I made my validation (of the Belgian EASA PPL) in SA in July 2017. Basically 4 things were needed, a briefing on density altitude effects, a briefing on SA airspace, to write an Air law exam + a practical test. Obtained my local Airlaw exam at 2nd attempt (with an ATO at Lanseria FALA). Plus a small payment.
The service at SA CAA is terrible, everybody at flying schools here complains about them :( They are not utterly competent, often are not aware themselves about the details of their own procedures. Just one lady (who manages the relevant section) is really competent (I can send you her email if needed), but her employees… Well.
Anyway now I have the blue book valid until July 2022, and fly quite a lot here.
If you need contacts for the 4 items above, I can give you the ones of Cirrus SA where I made it (but had to write the Air law exam at another ATO, in Lanseria as well).
Following is a cut/paste of my post in another thread:
The SACAA Foreign License Validation “piggy-back” on your EASA license is valid for 5 years. The procedure is as follows:
At a minimum, plan for two separate half days for the exams and flights and then a following two days for the completion/receipt of docs from the SACAA – of course this is a best case scenario, so allow room for delay
The whole issue is not the check ride with an instructor or the Air Law theory exam (unless you don’t pass it), but the paperwork. That is why I advise getting that paperwork sorted beforehand which means to not arrange the certification once there, but by going to a notary in your home country to get it all certified and shipped by courier to SA. For our flying tours, we have an arrangement with the SA CAA that they will give us even the license in our hands already once all this paperwork is done, so that once you land in Johannesburg, you do the theory exam at e.g. 07.00 or later in the morning at a test centre at Lanseria Airport and the check ride right after that. Once you are back on the ground, you are handed your validated license, even if you do the check ride in the weekend or even if on Sunday and you are good to go.
The paperwork phase is the phase that can take quite a while (up to 3 months in some cases).
Curious if anyone tried to do conversion of an EASA PPL to SA PPL recently. I asked a flight school in Stellenbosch and they suggested a timeframe of +-3 weeks is required. The training would consist of the following:
1. A familiarization briefing (3 hours)
2. 4 flights (each slot is 2 hours, flying time 1.2hours)
3. Briefing on navigation (2 hours)
4. Navigation flight
5. Oral test
6. Navigation test Flight
7. Airlaw online examination.
I guess the rules have become stricter over the last years since this training is more compared to what has been discussed in this topic earlier. Still curious if anyone can share any recent experience doing this.
FlyingDutchman wrote:
conversion of an EASA PPL to SA PPL
The different answer might also come from the different question.
Validation and conversion have very different meaning in ICAO annex 1 and all the (supra-)national flight crew licensing laws/regulations. It is normal that the requirements for conversion are higher than for validation.
