Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Why does ELP certification need signoffs by specially authorised people?

There are various other means of proving your ELP.

For example if you have a university degree in the UK, US, or Ireland, you should have a “certified” ELP to a decent standard. This would cover large numbers of people who would not otherwise be entitled to ELP4, let alone ELP6.

Also any holder of an FAA license has by definition got ELP. Probably ELP4; I flew with a DPE (from Iran or some such) who was definitely only 4

I didn’t have ELP until 2012 when a CAA IR examiner signed me off, despite having held an FAA CPL/IR by then.

Maybe this is because there are ways to cheat the system. For example UK universities used to require an English Language O-Level, later this became a GCSE, but I believe no longer do, or there are alternative ways in, and as a result a large % of students cannot speak any significant English and just copy/paste from essays found on google (you can do that in humanities, up to Masters level; less so in tech subjects).

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I automatically got level 6 when I got my PPL. The examiner said that the CAA automatically gives level 6 to everyone.

Whether deserved or not is another question – the other guy that did the CRI course with me had only level 5, despite having a deep knowledge of English and it’s finest nuances – apparently level 6 is extremely hard to get in Switzerland, where he came from.

Which brings me to (just thought of it): if you have two licences – can you claim you have ELP on one of them even if you are flying under the privileges of the other? I’d be really surprised if that is possible, but an interesting case nevertheless.

Am I wrong wrong that the “level” essentially means:
<4 you can’t claim ELP
4-5 you can claim but need to renew
6 you can claim for life

If that is correct, then FAA should give you automatically 6 – but I guess you might have claimed 4 as tongue in cheek

TIL that for ATC personnel ELP 6 is not for life, they have to retest after 9 years; it’s us pilots that are lucky. EU 2015/340 – ATCO.B.035 Validity of language proficiency endorsement

I wonder if above holds true for ATC personnel in English-speaking countries…

Also, I recall reading that for a 61.75 “piggyback” license one needs a valid ELP in the underlying license. Not for a standalone one. Perhaps others will comprehend FAA AC 60-28B better than I can. I guess I really didn’t deserve ELP 6…

tmo
EPKP - Kraków, Poland

Peter wrote:

just copy/paste from essays found on google (you can do that in humanities, up to Masters level; less so in tech subjects).

I doubt that strongly. All Swedish universities use software such as this that compares essays with a very large number of published papers and websites and previously submitted essays. It has built up a database over many years and is quite effective. I can’t imagine other that at least the major British universities use something similar.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Students – generally foreign students from the far away places – at UK univs are clearly ahead of the Swedish ones

They have the same software here as you have.

However what the students do here is they purchase essays, either from websites which are behind a paywall, or get lecturers (retired ones, you hope) to write fully custom essays for them. The fee for the latter goes up the faster you want it. The univs all know about this but are unwilling to give money to those doing the marking, to pay for the logins.

And even if it is obvious that the work was ripped off (because it is a mixture of great English, interspersed with almost illiterate bits – I have seen it myself and it is hilarious) the univ is not able to do much because to prove plagiarism they have to locate the source.

Some of this has always gone on. At univ I designed the final year project for a friend of mine…

However I think proving any given level of ELP to someone in person is impossible to fake, unless the examiner can barely speak English himself.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Born, raised, educated in UK. Scottish Higher English at school. Did 2 years English at UK University, before deciding that wasn’t for me. Principal Teacher Biology in a Scottish Secondary school, presenting at highest certificate level.
Had been flying regularly since 1987.The first CAA ELP certification was on a separate page of the “biennial” form. Some, including mine, were not scanned in.
When I tried to get an EASA licence, I had no ELP.
I submitted a form. I got it returned as they hadn’t received my PPL application.
I tried again, along with my EASA application, and eventually got them both, January 2018.
When revalidating my 61.75, after getting a CAA JAR licence on changing my address, the FAA guy I was with in his office must have failed to check that, at that time, I didn’t speak English at all.

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

However what the students do here is they purchase essays, either from websites which are behind a paywall, or get lecturers (retired ones, you hope) to write fully custom essays for them. The fee for the latter goes up the faster you want it. The univs all know about this but are unwilling to give money to those doing the marking, to pay for the logins.

Well, that’s quite different from what you first wrote namely that they “just copy/paste from essays found on google”.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

When I was at university (2000-2003) there were a large number of Chinese students who spoke pretty much no English at all. They all graduated, somehow.

The techniques probably evolve and become more sophisticated. When I was there it would have been straightforward ripping them off the internet. I doubt simple plagiarism is enough now, and paying to have them written from scratch is much talked about.

EGLM & EGTN

In Germany R/T requires a separate license (BZF I and AZF includes English, BZF II doesn’t) and the ELP is part of the exam for the BZF I and AZF. I got ELP Level 4 because that was the highest degree the examiners at the Federal Telecommunications Office were allowed to award.

The exam was pretty comprehensive, including tests of written English, understanding pre-recorded aviation-related audio tapes and a short discussion in English with two examiners.

Last Edited by MedEwok at 31 Aug 22:16
Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany
12 Posts
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top