I've just had to apply for new licenses. I hold UK ATPL/A and H with current IRs and all the right ticks in the boxes. According to PLD at the Belgrano if I want to fly in EASA land after 2014 I need an EASA license, I can apply for Uk licenses, but after a date in 2014 will be restricted to UK reg only and the rest of EASA land will be out, even as a destination for work.
I had an e-mail yesterday telling me that I can't have my new licenses because my Class 1 will lapse 25 days before the licenses are due to start and my medical must cover the start date. I'm so old I'm on six monthly medicals (some of my work is SPIFR) so I will have to re-submit when my medical is current. (I even had to send a copy of the cert, surely they can walk across reception and ask in the med dept if I have a medical)
God alone knows when I will see my logbooks again.
Also France is refusing to acept JAR and hence EASA at the moment, and may refuse it all together, Germany is going the same way. EASA is currently looking a bit like the Euro, some in and some out with all the inherent differences.
Sadly our beloved CAA is supine they have cheerfully bent aviation in the UK across a metaphorical table, dropped it's trousers and allowed EASA to
f+*@ it royally.
The CAA may be our regulator, but it is still a company, the service is crap, maybe its time to start a new company and go for the regulation contract, as a customer of the CAA I'm often disappointed, I spend 20 hours a week on how legislation is changing and how it will affect my company and I'm frankly sick of it.
Rant over, now back to N reg in JAR land
SND