Does renewing your licence help safety?

[Mister Geezer]

As someone who became an examiner towards the end of last year, I have had the pleasure getting used to all the CAA paperwork and also checking licences etc when it comes to revalidations and renewals for ratings. I have recently asked myself - what is achieved with having a limited validity period for your licence?

Rating revalidation and renewals are quite rightly of limited life for safety reasons. However with a licence (which is useless unless you have a rating) does an expiry date on that contribute to safety? I can't see how it does and it only increases the red tape for us and slows down the folks at PLD with 'unnecessary' administration tasks with renewing licences.

Maybe the CAA are trying to bring the licensing system in line with our continental colleagues since I am unaware of how long a French or German licence is valid for - maybe someone may be able to clarify? Is the CAA using JAR as a scapegoat to suddenly stamp an expiry date in licences? Perhaps I am just a cynic but I can't see past this as simply being a money spinning exercise for the Authority.

Why is there an uneven playing field since JAR licences are valid for 5 years whereas a UK CPL for Balloons is valid for 10 years and a UK NPPL is valid for life? It would make life a lot easier if all ICAO licences for a start, had the same rules for validity!

Hopefully this might provoke a discussion amongst some of you. Would be interested to hear your comments as well. Is it just me who feel that the CAA is taking us for a ride? :confused:

[BEagle]

I made that very point during the utterly fraudulent RIA conducted by the CAA when they inflicted the Eurocracy of JAR-FCL on the PPL world. But my point was dismissed as being irrelevant - the CAA alleged that cost of PPL issue plus the cost of reissuing a PPL every 5 years was cheaper than the cost of the old lifetime PPL.

Which was, of course, total rubbish.

[Mister Geezer]

Mmmm that is a poor excuse!

Here is a bit of trivia!

According to the CAA website there was 167 licence renewals in the period 2004-2005. 150 were for professional licences and 17 were for PPLs.

Using the information on the scheme of charges the grand total 'earned' by the CAA was around £32,500. If each licence renewal took 30 mins admin time then that would take up around 2 working weeks of someone's office time, processing all these renewals!

As the number of JAR PPLs starts to get into serious numbers then the income for the CAA will increase and the manpower required will be increased as well.

The CAA have tried to make GA more accessible with the introduction of the NPPL which is a positive step. However I sometimes wonder if the CAA have lost the plot when Private flying is in fact done for pleasure and fun. A lot of PPLs learn to fly and leave the licence to gather dust and may not use it for some time or ever again. Seeing a expiry date in their licence and the thought of dealing with the CAA may well be one factor that persuades them to leave the licence to gather more dust and in the end don't get flying again.

That is a sad state of affairs!

[DFC]

When someone complains to me that it is so wrong to have to renew a pilot licence every 5 years, I ask them how often have they complained about having to renew a passport every 10 years?

Forcing people to renew every 5 years ensures among other things that the address and contact details are correct. Is this too much to ask for a document that in the case of professional licenses gives the holder an effective passport when operating as crew.

I am in favour of having a picture on every licence.

Remember that the holder of a pilot licence can often gain access to security restricted areas at aerodromes. From a security point of view it is nice to know that the pilot's details on the licence are correct to atleast 5 years ago!

Isn't it a coincidence that 5 years crops up in many areas where checks are done on people!

Regards,

DFC

[homeguard]

A strange thing for everyone is that while the need for revalidation is 24 months (every two years) the need to renew the licence is 60 months (five years) and this has the effect of the pilot being required to renew their licence half way between the second and third revalidation.

I suspect that there are many pilots who are unwittingly flying with current validations but with expired licences! Synchronisation would be helpful.

[Dude~]

It is all a bit confusing and requires careful attention to stay on top of it all.

Many of us have to keep an eye on different expirey dates for 7 or even more ratings:
SEP
MEP
Instrument rating
Instructor rating
CPL licence
RT licence

(How many people realise the RT licence can run out? I know a guy who's RT licence ran out, and another whose PPL ran out before his SEP and he carried on flying for several months in blissful ignornance)

and lets not forget medicals...

[Mister Geezer]

DFC

I agree that a licence should have a picture of the licence holder printed in it. However using a licence for airside access is often a struggle nowadays, with some airports simply refusing to accept a licence for airside access. Some of my former colleagues at my last airline had terrible problems getting airside whilst they waited for their airside pass to be issued. In the most difficult of cases the crewmember either had to 'check in' and get a boarding card or get a fax sent from crewing to security to confirm that the person was a bona fide crewmember. Airport security staff, in general don't know what to look for in a licence anyway. I was told the only thing they do is to match the name in the passport to the name in the licence. No checks on the licence itself! Having an accurate address is not going to enhance security.


Whenever we renew a rating we have to send off the SRG1119 to the CAA and that has a section for the applicant to fill in which includes his/her address. So even if an applicant forgets to keep the CAA updated of his address there is this opportunity for him/her to update the CAA with the paperwork for the rating renewal. However if a different address is on the SRG1119 to the licence they don't seem to query it and they don't send a new address page for you to slot in. Not everyone is going to be keen and remember to send the change of address card when they move house! Once again the CAA making more admin for themselves!

I have a friend of mine who had exactly the same problem that was mentioned. Valid SEP and medical but PPL had lapsed for a few months before it was spotted!

[Send Clowns]

DFC, Mister GI am in favour of having a picture on every licence.Have you read your licence? Do you realise that it is only accepted in conjuction with photographic ID?

My renewal requirements:

Medical 12 months
Licence 60 months
SEP 24 months
MEP 12 months
FI 36 months
IR 12 months
OPC 6 months
AOC check (as I am the only full-time pilot!) when I am told
RT Licence can't even remember!

This business doesn't run on avgas/avtur, it runs on paper!

[DFC]

DFC, Mister GHave you read your licence? Do you realise that it is only accepted in conjuction with photographic ID?


Yes and that is why it would be more simple for the photographic element to be included in the licence. Especially when under international agreement, the licence can be used as a passport when operating as crew.

Regards,

DFC

[Send Clowns]

But it has to be in conjunction with a crew ID as well, and as that will be photographic there seems little need. I have always kept mine with my passport, not having a crew ID until recently.

[BizJetJock]

DFC,
I think you'll find that the passport priveliges of the licence were withdrawn nearly 20 years ago, and that was when the CAA stopped issuing licences with a photo...
JAA licences have never had passport priveliges.

BJJ

[DFC]

BJJ,

No things have not changed. See the GEN section of the AIP.

Of course if one uses a UK / JAA licence with no photograph then one needs either a crew card or passport.

However, there is more to it than simple pasport. One can normally enter the country for up to 7 days on a layover without meeting the requirements for having a visa or leave to remain. That alone is very important for international crews.

The UK does not issue crew cards. It relies on the id cards issued by Airports and Airlines. Great way of getting round the requirement to have crew cards free of charge!

Regards,

DFC

[BizJetJock]

GEN 1.3.2 says that if you have a licence with passport priveliges you can use them. Since the UK licence had them withdrawn in the late 80's and the JAA licence never had them that's about as much use as a chocolate kettle.
Typical beurocratic nonsense really.

[tonker]

No it doesn't

Almost crashed my car when i read they wanted £119 for cpl and nigh on £500 with a'cft for FI

Got a job flying 73's now so financial burden put on hold but still a tonne of cash for some crappy bits of paper.

ps have wine coat on so sorry for honesty:\