???
You don't seriously expect me to publicize this oversight of page 398 of some obscure CAA document for foreign license conversion at a facility that does not administer that many of them, do you Whopity? That classy gentleman overlooked that hidden interpretation on foreign license conversion and so did I; had I passed a separate foreign RT exam he would have been right, but since the nation where powered flight was invented, where 70% of the global GA takes place has the pragmatic approach of checking RT and flight tests in one occasion we fell into this trap. (Just to provide you with some new insights - the Swiss do not require this either for foreign license conversion on ICAO licenses; this is clearly an interpretation without direct wording. So much for harmonization in EASA rules.. or JAR for that matter before those magic dates last year).
The examiner has been appointed for a long time - and the CAA has agreed for me to pass the exam separately since it would appear that I have the necessary skills to legally fly instruments commercially on N-registered a/c, and they do not intend to penalize me for an interpretation that is buried pretty deeply in their conundrum of rules. This is what I love about British common sense. They provided my with some deadline of validity of the oral exam, period. Why? Look up the FCL regs on foreign license conversion and what is quoted there. Looks like a comprehensive checklist, but alas, it isn't - by Gatwick's interpretation. AL, HPL, and a check flight with 100 hrs tt won't do...
Cheers!