From the IAOPA news, just received in email:
I thought that under EASA regs, the country where the license is held must be the same as where the medical is held. So how can you transfer your license to e.g. Denmark without needing to get a medical sorted out as well?
I thought that under EASA regs, the country where the license is held must be the same as where the medical is held.
I never heard of this one, but EASA-FCL is 850+ pages long and I stopped reading around page 11 
The problem I see is that the countries with no (or low) licensing fees will not be able to cope with this kind of “licence tourism” for very long. Germany has quite reasonable fees for licensing, but they are severely understaffed at LBA. If you come from a type rating course and submit your paperwork for issue of a new license, it takes between two and three weeks until you will receive it. During this time you are useless for your employer. If these waiting times will be even longer in the future due to foreign pilots using Germany as their “licensing country”, the commercial opeators – with Lufthansa in the lead – will be the first ones to submit protests! The only way out for LBA will then be to increase their fees as well (just as the large airports do) to scare away the Swedes…
It’s unclear to me how to get a Class 2 medical in a foreign (i.e. Non-UK) country.
Would this always require a visit to the new “host” country, including annual medical renewals?
The medical will automatically follow when you do your validation to another EASA state.
You should still be able to do your medical at your ordinary doctor, perhaps just with another form to fill out.
Proficiency Check is also done same as always, the examiner just need to read through a short document about insurance, liability and so on. Every country has it easily available on their website.
It’s unclear to me how to get a Class 2 medical in a foreign (i.e. Non-UK) country.
Just go to an AME or AMC in another country. In Germany you could do it at any time, you get it signed and stamped from the AME no matter who you are. However, the motivation for medical tourism is probably not to have a by-the-book German examiner but do it somewhere else…
You do not register a pilots licence. A pilots licence is issued by one State and you can change your State of licence Issue if you wish, that will involve moving your medical record to the new State of Licence issue. In the UK we use CAA form SRG1136 The form implies a charge is made but I cannot find it in the scheme of charges. In theory, any subsequent medical can be completed in any EASA State.
On harmonization of medical and license: My fixed wing licenses are in Holland, rotary wing in the UK and medical in Spain. Have not heard of any authority challenging this. My Spanish medical was just renewed on the basis of a form where I clearly state that my license is Dutch-issued.
Have not heard of any authority challenging this.
Have you recently applied for an EASA licence? That is the point at which it is likely to be queeried, if all the ducks are not in the same row; until that point nobody will notice.
Whilst you will have more than one licence in the various categories, under Part FCL you cannot hold more than one Medical Certificate!
I am in the process of applying for an EASA licence (and have been for the past six months or so – now where is that “weep” icon?) and one of the things I had to do was transfer my medical records from the Dutch authorities to the UK CAA. Otherwise the CAA would not issue my EASA licence. (The latest snag is now that my LPE 6 has disappeared from the files, while it was already recorded early 2011.)
I thought that you could only transfer your licence to the state where you resided. I did not know you could “offshore” your licence to a foreign country. But given the current service of the CAA (e-mail turnaround time, on average, 40 days, and that is after a gentle and a not-so-gentle reminder, and the latest “loss” of my LPE 6) I’m severely tempted to transfer the whole lot to a different country.
At this stage I’m only trying to consolidate my PPL. But I also have a piece of paper from the Dutch KNVvL, which is not an official & legal licence but says that I have done an exam that conforms to the ICAO standard for Glider Pilots. At some point in time the Dutch government (most likely “aided” by the KNVvL) will have to come up with a piece of paper that says that this certificate is either sufficient proof I meet the requirements for an EASA Part-FCL GPL, or specifies the additional training/requirements to be issued with an EASA Part-FCL GPL. And then I’ve got to go through the whole process again to get the CAA to issue me with an EASA GPL. I do not want to think about that yet. In any case, a few months ago the CAA was not willing to issue me an EASA GPL on the basis of the KNVvL certificate yet. They claimed it was because the Dutch had not published the conversion report yet, but at the same time I think the CAA is not ready yet to issue GPLs – at least I have not seen any forms regarding this yet.
and the latest “loss” of my LPE 6
Does this mean they won’t transfer a Dutch one? I gather that some States are not accepting other States ELP assessments, so much for a common standard! If the CAA held it, it should still be on record! I do get the impression that they don’t look very far as most UK pilots will have been signed off as Level 6 since we first started doing it in 2005!
