I have just been on the phone to New York to speak to a very helpful lady in the FAA office there about the upcoming requirement to renew all FAA licences with the English Language proficiency statement. This will affect all those flying on N-reg aircraft with FAA licences granted on the back of UK CAA licences, as far as I can tell. This has to be done by March of next year, and will require first of all a lot of paperwork, including having all medical certificates, etc up to date, a statement of UK licence verification from the CAA etc etc. This then has to be sent to the USA and then if accepted they will give a time window in which you have to appear in person at one of the FAA offices that you select in advance. Applications must be made at least 90 days before arriving at the FSDO in the USA. This cannot be done at a distance but must be in person. One of the problems, apart from the expense and complexity, is that when you come to the US office in question there should be no changes from the data submitted and already examined by the FAA. So, this means for example that if say you have a medical exam to do, you need to have this done before sending the application to the FAA. if there is a mismatch between what is submitted to the FAA and your details on presenting to the office you may find that they will not be able to issue a replacement licence. This is my understanding of the situation: perhaps someone out there knows differently?
