Yes, that's the one I've been asked to comment upon. The link from the CAA website is
Licensing and Training Standards Documents | EASA | Safety Regulation ; this will be a useful page from which to keep an eye on more potential €urononsense....
Once upon a time, there was a Piper J3 Cub, a Piper Cherokee and a Supermarine Spitfire.
For many, many years, you could fly all of them on a UK PPL anywhere in the world. Every 13 months your logbook would be stamped if you'd done 5 hrs P1 and you'd be good for another 13 months.
Then the UK CAA decided it would be A Good Thing to change the rules before JAR-FCL came in, so that it wouldn't come as a complete shock. You could still fly your Cub, Cherokee and Spitfire on a PPL, but the logbook stamp became a 2-yearly licence page signature instead. And was called 'revalidation' or, if you’d run out of currency (which was now called ‘recency’), ‘renewal’.
When JAR-FCL arrived, if you wanted to you could change your lifetime UK PPL into a JAR-FCL PPL which needed to be re-issued every 5 years for which, of course, you would have to pay. The CAA said that this would make things cheaper for everyone in their Regulatory Impact Assessment. Few people were stupid enough to bother. But you couldn't obtain a lifetime UK PPL any longer....
Training for the JAR-FCL PPL was too expensive for many - and some pilots couldn't meet the medical requirements, so a new, simpler licence and medical was invented - the NPPL. Originally with 'simple SEP' privileges, later changed to SSEA because the CAA weren't man enough to stand their ground when challenged. You could, however, still fly your Cub and Cherokee, but not a Spitfire. But only in UK airspace.
Then the €urocrats sniffed real gold and invented EASA. This wholly unnecessary €uro-quango now intends to force everyone with a lifetime UK PPL to replace it with an EASA part-FCL PPL - which isn't lifetime - if they want to fly 'EASA aircraft' such as Cherokees, but not Cubs or Spitfires. Also a JAR-FCL PPL will need to become an EASA PPL. Unless, that is, you simply want to fly your Cub and Spitfire, because you will still be able to do that with a national licence such as a UK PPL or, for the Cub only, an NPPL. If you want to fly a Cherokee as well, you would need to change your NPPL into a LAPL (assuming the medical requirements are still achievable) - or your UK PPL / JAR-FCL PPL into an EASA part-FCL PPL.
So, as I understand it, when the lunacy of Brave New €uroland finally arrives:
• You'll be able to fly a Cub, but not a Cherokee, on an NPPL in UK airspace.
• You might be able to fly a Cub on a LAPL outside UK airspace; you could fly a Cherokee, but not a Spitfire.
• You'll be able to fly a Cub or a Spitfire on a UK PPL, but not a Cherokee. Certainly in UK airspace and perhaps elsewhere?
• You might be able to fly a Cub or Spitfire on an EASA PPL but probably only in UK airspace, but you would be able to fly a Cherokee inside or outside UK airspace.
• The NPPL and LAPL have different revalidation / renewal requirements and the LAPL might also have reissue requirements. None of which are the same as for the UK PPL or EASA PPL.
• The UK PPL doesn't need to be reissued whereas the EASA PPL does.
• My brain hurts.
How to fly a Spitfire outside UK airspace? You’ll probably just have to wait until €uroland starts wearing uniforms and adopting funny walks. Then, just as in 1940, you won’t need any licence at all!
Isn't the whole thing becoming more than a little ludicrous?