These things tend not to be as simple as they should. Back in June I was on holiday in Greece, made contact with a flying school at the local International airport before I went (the owner used to be an instructor at Stapleford) and made arrangements to hire his Greek registered 152 for an hour. He was content to give me a check ride then let me loose
.. however.
Firstly, I was happier having a local safety pilot with me ... much quicker and easier with somebody who knows the local procedures, where the reporting points are etc. etc.
All flights in Greece require a flight plan - even a VFR jolly, so, we filled it in with me as P1, the other guy (not the instructor just one of his mates - a Greek PPL) as pax. We also had to fill in a lading bill/ manifest and a few other bits and then trotted down the corridor in the terminal to the airport admin office to file them.
I had to get my license out and my medical certificate and a couple of curmudgeonly Greek CAA matrons (rather like Kathy Staff and Jane Freemen) scrutinised them pulled them to pieces, peered at them against the light etc.
and then demanded ... "Where is your Greek License ??" My instructor/school owner, then produced reams and reams of paperwork from their CAA which apparently (it was in Greek) pronounced unequivicably that Greece being a signatory to JAR accepted wholeheartedly the international agreements and acknowledged a JAA PPL was OK to drive a Greek plane.
The two dames nodded sagely, smiled and demanded "but where is your Greek License". After 20 minutes of frustration, argument and a whole lot of discussion in Greek, we gave up, put P1 (K1 in Greek) next to the other guys name and made me Pax.
Off we went, I flew LHS, he did the radio calls (the ladies in question apeared to be running the ground frequency as well so best not to give the game away) and we had an enjoyable hour and a half of flying and I put 1.5 hrs in P1 in my book.
Now that was just to get an hour in a 152, heaven knows what would have happened if I'd turned up with UK exam passes and wanted to do the final few hours and a skills test, but I am convinced some insurmountable obstacles would have appeared.
My advice is make sure, make absolutely sure, then make certain. In this case even the Greek guy with the Greek CAA documentation couldn't get past a couple of local officials.
WCollins - I sure hope your man gets to complete OK - he deserves to after the way he got peed about by a club here.