Ok read page 19 for under 2730 KG which is the small stuff
Ref. ARC Issues – Aircraft below 2,730 kg MTWA
Falling due after
27 September 2008
Col. 1 Column 2 Column 3
D
A direct application received by the CAA from the owner or
operator, or via a CAMO, of a helicopter or a powered lift (tilt
rotor) aircraft, the applicant shall pay:
£50 per 500 kg or part
thereof of the maximum
weight of the aircraft
That figure is EASA cast in stone, so if you have an engineer working on his EASA licence and certifying an Aircraft as we read it the CAA can only charge that a year for the ARC issue, which equates to about what you pay now....... now if you were in a controlled environment that would be waived for 2 years as you can extend it, BUT YOU WOULD have to pay the organisation charges for your company approvals..... and they get passed on to the customer in what is charged and it is THOUSANDS in total...
Take a look at how much it takes to approve an organisation...... on pages 23 ish....
So as it stands a Licenced Engineer with access to current manuals etc can certify the Aircraft on his EASA Licence and the CAA have to if you request carry out the ARC issue annually outside a controlled environment at the set rate........ thus you lose all the additional costs of the organisation again.... or in other words the "Man in a Van" which they were trying to get rid of is back.... and its their (EASA) own fault.
Now I am under no illusion this will not eventually be closed but as I see it, it is still open at the moment and I do know of companies thinking about it.
Between EASA and the CAA they have screwed Licences over so much that it one reason costs are going up, People are leaving engineering in droves and the replenishing from the Military has all but dried up, imagine being told you have to resit exams because we have changed the rules to the countries drivers........ well that's what they did to our Engineers, hence people walk to better paid occupations with less grief.