No worries wiggy, and I appreciate the reminder about getting the terminology correct. If I don't get an answer by the time I go home at end of the month I'll call the taxman and post on here his interpretation of the rule.
Incidentally, one thing I learned is that one needs to keep very accurate records of work carried out overseas (which must average 35 hours per week based on the Reference Period). Even flying the best part of 1000 hours a year - including pre-flight and post-flight duties is well below the level required. Clearly, we also carry out admin duties and (most of us, anyway
) study for many hours to remain current although this is very tedious to document. I'm not sure if time spent on layovers away from base counts as work but the cumulative time away should certainly satisfy the rule. One would assume that a pilot flying almost to the annual hourly limit would also be sufficient evidence, but again maybe I'm being overly optimistic! Perhaps someone has a definitive answer on this issue?