UK national licence, and conversions of it

Aviathor wrote:

By stepping out of EASA and reverting to national licenses, UK pilots would also loose the privilege to fly non-G-reg airplanes without validation by the relevant NAA, and probably also vice versa. We may also end up with the funny side effect that EASA pilots who want to own/fly G-reg aircraft will need both national UK papers AND EASA licenses

In the past the CAA allowed any ICAO-compliant 3rd country license to be used with G-reg. Given that in the ANO rewrite, they’ve kept this provision for nationally regulated aircraft (so you can fly G reg Annex II on an FAA PPL, for example), I would imagine in the event that the UK is no longer an EASA state, this will be applied to all G-reg just as it used to be, meaning an EASA PPL would work just fine for G-reg.

alioth wrote:

In the past the CAA allowed any ICAO-compliant 3rd country license to be used with G-reg.

True….I flew for quite a number of years in the UK on my Australian PPL….. but there are (were?) conditions: Private ops, Day VFR only…. actually a G-reg could (can?) be flown private, day VFR anywhere in the world with any ICAO licence…not just in the UK.

actually a G-reg could (can?) be flown private, day VFR anywhere in the world with any ICAO licence…not just in the UK

VFR and IFR, not limited to day.

I think it ended in 2012 (except for non-EASA aircraft) but @tumbleweed is the expert…

For VFR this was great.

For IFR it was very limited because it was OCAS only i.e. limited to Class F/G. So you could land at say Biggin EGKB (Class G) but not at Southampton EGHI (Class D). So one could not do “proper IFR” on a US PPL/IR.

Other countries have/had similar validation schemes for ICAO licenses (never for an IR AFAIK unless it was a CPL/IR or ATPL and you were getting a job with an AOC operator on their registry) but AFAIK only the UK CAA’s validation was automatic and with no paperwork.

Bathman wrote:

Medical declaration (free), training as required then test. Examiner then signs the license. No CAA involvement or fees involved at all. The whole lot could even be done in a day (and has been)

Well, but doesn’t that then equate to the FAA BasicMed declaration and render the license sub-ICAO?

I fail to grasp the big issue of converting to an EASA license. I did the whole conversion thing (albeit from JAR) including reval and change of address in about an hour at Gatwick. Cost me the grandiose amount of 72 quid. Is that really asking too much?

Peter wrote:

Other countries have/had similar validation schemes for ICAO licenses (never for an IR AFAIK unless it was a CPL/IR or ATPL and you were getting a job with an AOC operator on their registry)

It was possible in Austria in pre-JAR days. Not automatic, but done on the spot in a few minutes. This went away once Austria joined JAR-OPS (which it did relatively late).

It therefore seems to me that the UK national PPL is equivalent to the NPPL – possibly with the exception that it covers more aircraft classes than the NPPL?

The PPL can have an IR attached to it but almost everyone who wants an IR will be flying outside the UK. Unless they just want to teach the IR… but can you teach an EASA IR on a UK national PPL/IR?

172driver wrote:

doesn’t that then equate to the FAA BasicMed declaration and render the license sub-ICAO

…which is exactly why the FAA only allows you to fly abroad with a “proper” medical, not BasicMed…

It doesn’t matter how you shake this (and I have been shaking it for 17 years ) you always get the same “papers versus capabilities versus crap” falling out… there is never a free lunch or any great wonderful concession. Well, sometimes there is (like the Irish CAA converting an FAA ATPL into a JAA one, till the EU busted them) but it doesn’t last long.

Why?

It’s not hard to work out.

Vested interests, in flight training, in the CAAs, in the maintenance business. Everybody has their head stuck up somebody else’s underside and is feeding off everybody else. If you have a family to feed you aren’t going to rock the boat.

And ICAO certification and licensing is what gives us the international privileges.

172driver wrote:

I fail to grasp the big issue of converting to an EASA license. I did the whole conversion thing (albeit from JAR) including reval and change of address in about an hour at Gatwick. Cost me the grandiose amount of 72 quid. Is that really asking too much?

I think the issue would be for somebody who has been flying for decades outside of Europe using an FAA pilot certificate based on a non-expiring UK pilot licence. The question is whether that licence is still valid to fly (for instance) the Cessna 172 on which they originally learned to fly and still fly outside EASA regulated airspace, or if it has been downgraded by UK, without notification, into a different licence than it originally was. You could certainly argue that such an individual should get a stand alone FAA Certificate to eliminate the issue of European licencing forever, but I think many would have no idea that they need to maintain an ongoing interaction with the UK given that their UK licence was issued as ICAO compliant, valid for the planes they flew and still fly, and non-expiring.

Gatwick may be on the other side of the world – as I think you would understand!