PPL Licence…...£160 for this??

[Gav28]

Having applied for my PPL and after a 4 week wait I received a package back from the CAA today, this contained my log book and some folded up pieces of paper labelled "Flight Crew Licence", now apologies if this is a stupid question but is this my actual PPL licence? I've never seen a licence so wasn't sure what to expect but is this what the CAA are charging £160 for??
Thanks
Gav

[Tall_guy_in_a_152]

There should be a poo brown plastic wallet to put your bits of paper in - license, rating, RT and medical.

It's £10 for the paperwork and £150 towards the CAA Christmas party....

[Merritt]

I can't yet answer your question as I am waiting for mine... but 4 weeks??!!

What the hell happened to 10 days?

The CAA have already extracted their money from me, so if it takes another 3 weeks to arrive I won't be happy.. I would like to get up flying before 'summer' ends properly (not that it really started)


Steve

[MIKECR]

In a nutshell, yes! That hard earned licence and all you get is a brown bit of plastic and some sheets of paper! Oh and the plastic falls to bits after a year!

[Gav28]

Well I've double checked and no sign of any brown plastic wallet…. I'm going to get on the phone to those jokers at the CAA right now and have a rant until they send me one!!

[Mike Cross]

Only £160? you got off lightly.

For the European Luscombe Rally at the beginning of the month we needed an exemption from the CAA to allow us to drop flour bombs.

The exemption is a single page standard letter from the CAA detailing the date time and place of the event and the name of the person in charge. It is accompanied by a single sheet of guidelines.

The cost? A snip at 200 quid!:mad:

Difficult to see how you could viably run such an event. If you charged two quid a try that's 100 runs down the runway just to get the CAA fee back, the neighbours would have something to say about that!

[Bahn-Jeaux]

Got my paper licences and poo coloured wallet exactly 3 weeks to the day after it was posted.
Impressed with the quality........NOT

[gpn01]

.....For my TV. Doesn't seem to make it work any better though :-(

[Cuillin]

And if you apply to the US FAA to get a (free) FAA PPL on the back of your UK PPL the UK CAA will charge you £39-00 to, basically, send a reply e-mail to Oklahama City confirming your basic details!!

Daylight robbery.

[Dave Gittins]

And every 5 years the CAA charge you another £63.00 and you don't even get a new brown wallet.

DGG

:*

[MizzFlyer]

Got my paper licences and poo coloured wallet exactly 3 weeks to the day after it was posted.
Impressed with the quality........NOTAw diddums. What did you expect? A gold embossed and calligraphic scroll on best quality parchment? A licence is a licence [OED entry] (http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/licence?view=uk) not a certificate - the Yanks give those.
Grow up:ugh:
Mz

[Bahn-Jeaux]

Who rattled your cage prissy missy, I stated the quality was poor for the money, it is.

What the reference to a certificate versus licence has to do with my post I dont know, I received my PPL and Radio licence at the same time, no mention of certificates in there.

Did I expect anything else..no, I knew what I was going to get now Foxtrot Oscar somewhere else and grow up yourself.

[PompeyPaul]

Shops that only have 1 person serving at the busiest times, Bars that are 3 people deep on a Friday night, Bus drivers that don't carry change and get uppity if you give them a fiver, the list goes on and on.

£160 for a few bits of paper and a plastic brown wallet, that you have to wait 3 to 4 weeks for ? It's not that different from the whole UK's ability to deliver p*ss poor service.

Compare that with HK where I got to within one finger of beer left and the waitress was over asking if I wanted another one.....

[Dave Gittins]

Even in the good old US a Walmart, Circuit City or Home Depot has an assitant who tracks you down, asks if they can help .. appears to take genuine great delight in doing so and asks you to have a nice day.

Does that happen in ASDA, Currys or B & Q ?

Yesterday Mrs DG (who wants us to have a new state of the art home cordless phone and answering machuine) spent 10 minutes in Currys in Bluewater just trying to find an assistant.

DGG

[3bars]

wait til you go commercial!!!

[LH2]

wait til you go commercial!!!
...at £69.- a pop for each one of the 14 exams... plus license issue (only £169?), plus IR issue, plus class 1 medical...
But apparently you get a blue low quality plastic wallet though... which is why I do it :cool:
Having said that, all in all I am satisfied with the service I get from the CAA, except for the fees of course.

[Life's a Beech]

They did the same to me, only I'd paid even more when they left out my (blue in this case) wallet and just sent me a sheaf of papers. My first UK licence too, so it confused me.

Then they took 3 weeks to even bother to look at my renewal, I had to go down in the end to pick it up as it is my livelihood, and charged me over £100 for that dreadful service! How can it take 3 weeks to look up details of my existing licence and print them out on new sheets of paper, and how can it cost so much (albeit with a new plastic wallet)? This should be a two-day turnaround, with some delay in busy periods, not a two-week turnaround with even more delay in busy periods. It should cost around £10-20 to administer. It is a rip off.

[G-KEST]

As a former FSO with the CAA, not FCL I hasten to add, I would very gently remind those whose angst has been vented that it is mid-August and despite the vagaries of our UK climate is it the holiday season.

I have no doubt that the number of staff in FCL who deal with licence issue are much reduced at this time.

Professional licences and ratings do take some priority over private since the ability to earn a living is involved.

As to the question of charges. Like that wonderful machiavellian character of a politician on TV was fond of saying - "I hear what you say..... but I could not possibly comment.............!!!!!!!!!!!!!!".

Cheers,

Trapper 69
:mad:

PS - Just got my monthly CAA pension advice slip today. Usual time too. Thank the Lord they are not on holiday.

[Gingerbread Man]

I believe it says somewhere that the licence isn't valid without photographic ID. I wouldn't have thought it would be too difficult to work a photograph in there somewhere, like the drivers licence for example.

[No Country Members]

There's your answer then, you have to pay for their holidays. And their lunch breaks (ring em up at lunchtime go on try it!). And their subsidised canteen and the shiny grey building at Wick Gat. Honestly they do make your £160 go a long way!

[Whirlygig]

I was another one who just received the printed pieces of paper and no wallet (battleship grey in my case!) and if I hadn't mentioned it in passing to my instructor, I would not have known I was supposed to get a wallet.

I rang up and they sent me a wallet by return but I find it curious that there are a number of people to whom this has happened. Are they trying to save money by not giving wallets?

Cheers

Whirls

[mark147]

They're probably getting a fair number of renewals interspersed with the applications now (which wouldn't have been happening until fairly recently when the first JAR licences started to expire). Perhaps they're getting confused as to whether they're issuing a new licence or a renewal and therefore whether it needs to have the poo-brown wallet thrown in.

M.

[tangovictor]

mine arrived, in a clear plastic wallet, which obviously wasn't made for the folded papers, ( they dont fit )

[josher]

dont grieve over the absence of the brown wallet - its utterly useless. The paper sticks to the plastic pockets and if removed leaves an imprint on the inside so making contents illegible. I chucked mine away after about six months and us plastic pockets from staples. I assume CAA have finally run out of the thousands stocked and hopefully may get something fit for purpose

[Mike Cross]

Used to come in a fine Imperial cardboard cover, like the old blue passports. Very tastreful, well my dog thought so at any rate, chewed it to bits.:uhoh:

Are they trying to save money by not giving wallets?
Come off it you'd have to save at least a thousand just to pay for lunch.

Mind you, they're probably made from CAA approved unobtanium, which costs hundreds of pounds per gram.

[rans6andrew]

When I got my first licence, a PPL(H), the tatty bits of paper came with the poo coloured plastic thingy. I rang the folk in the shiney grey building and insisted on the silver one with PPL Heli and Gyro written on the front. They sent me a nice silver hardback one which now contains the tatty paper for the NPPL (M) (microlight). The PPL(H) is a bit lapsed but the paper bits are still in the back of the silver holder. I still think the cost was too much for so little.

Fly safely out there.

[Fg Off Max Stout]

160 squids? Luxury.

Wait till you have to interact with the CAA as a professional pilot. Amongst the unending list of fees are: Class 1 medical (several hundred quid for blood pressure and ball coughing) and 14 or 15 ATPL exams at £62.50 a pop. That's £2.70 per question on the comms exams and it's not even marked by a human. Unbelievable!

[Merritt]

Oh the joys of the US FAA...
When you pass your Checkride etc, you are given a paper cert valid for 120 days. The Examiner/DPE does all the paperwork. You submit nothing to the FAA and you pay nothing.
Then maybe 30-60 days later - you get the credit card size plastic certificate with all your information on it. All you have to do is carry it along with a government issued photo-id.
All very civilized.

The FAA are contemplating adding a photo-id to the cert but are still mulling over that one. The last suggestion was that the AME would take the piccy at medical renewal time.



Great.... Meanwhile ive got to watch a really nice bank holiday weekend pass, watching from the ground despite finishing the PPL 2 weeks ago :hmm:

:sad:

[MarcJF]

Come on now guys and girls, how else is a hard pressed CAA official expected to retire early on a gold plated pension if they can't rip off Jo Public? It's all about the money, like TV licence, speeding fines etc. The UK - don't you just love it?!

[Fg Off Max Stout]

Don't forget the good old 'Dog Licence' that persisted until a few years ago in the UK. It was like something out of a Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks sketch, but alas, real. Couldn't make it up!

[MarcJF]

Thinking about it, don't we still have a fishing licence?

[HeliCraig]

Yes we do still have a fishing licence - The Environment Agency are even having a "clamp down" on fishing without one locally to me!

Back to the subject though, I received my PPL(H) today - they received it on the 6th, but acknowledged receipt on the 9th; so they didn't do too bad really.

However.... I got no holder of any description whatsoever. I assumed that you therefore had to buy them, but can't find one on TransAir, or PilotWarehouse. Should I have got a silver one from the CAA then?

Might give them a bell tomorrow if thats the case - and play the "how long on hold" game. :)

[Whirlygig]

HeliCraig,

Firstly congrats! Yes, like me and others, you should have received a wallet. Ring them up and ask for one.

Interestingly, I call it battleship-grey and others say silver!!!

Cheers

Whirls

[Life's a Beech]

G-KEST

All very well, except it was April when I renewed. Why on Earth should they take more than two days to process it then? I don't really see why they can't turn round the majority on the day they arrive when they're not busy and it's not holiday season. They appeared to have sat on it for 3 weeks until I called, then did it before I could get there.


And the character would have been Francis Urquahart in House of Cards, btw.

[PompeyPaul]

Great.... Meanwhile ive got to watch a really nice bank holiday weekend pass, watching from the ground despite finishing the PPL 2 weeks ago

I passed 3 weeks ago, but won't get my license for another 3 weeks, almost a month and a half after passing.

On the other hand I shouldn't have been a silly sod and lost my medical certificate when my doctor was away on holiday.

[Droopystop]

Service I got from the CAA is fine, except that they gave me a dog poo brown plastic wallet instead of a white one. CAA can't even tell the difference between a rotary licence and a fixed wing one.

[Solar]

What I find slightly annoying is that as I work offshore I am required to have more or less the same medical in fact it would be slightly more intense than the flying medical and they can not be interchanged. Ok the company pays for the offshore one but it would appear that the medical profession are akin to the legal profession in this instance in ensuring the cash keeps coming in although I cannot complain about my AME when I read about some of the charges.
It would be nice if the offshore industry would say that the flying medical covers it or vice versa then that would one less expense but since when did logic ever interfere with bureaucracy.

[Whirlygig]

does it really matter what colour your PPL wallet is?
Yes, if you were going for a job! The brown wallets are for PPL(A), the white ones are for ATPL(H) - big difference!!!

Cheers

Whirls

[BackPacker]

Great.... Meanwhile ive got to watch a really nice bank holiday weekend pass, watching from the ground despite finishing the PPL 2 weeks ago.

You can always go to the school and ask an instructor to sign you out, as if you were still a student. Most likely you're renting from them anyway so that should be easy.

Can't bring passengers with you though, until you've got your license in hand.

[BackPacker]

It would be nice if the offshore industry would say that the flying medical covers it or vice versa then that would one less expense but since when did logic ever interfere with bureaucracy.

Solar, I was in more or less the same situation a few months ago. My JAA Class 2 medical was about to expire, I needed a new diving medical and I needed another medical check related to a medical procedure from a while ago.

The diving license was easy. Apparently my AME was well used to that and it was only 15 euros or so extra to issue me the bit of paper. The other medical check required some phonecalls between the AME and that other place, to know what exactly was required. As it turned out, it was just a little more detail on the blood work which the AME lab could handle perfectly well. They even gave me a separate invoice for that, to send to the other place, together with the results of the blood work.

So a bit of phoning around saved me at least one medical examination, which otherwise would have required me to take half a day off work.

My advice is to find out *exactly* what is required for your offshore medical, take those bits of paper to the AME and see if they can sign you off for that as well. Ask for a separate invoice and send that to your offshore employer.

[slim_slag]

If they are short staffed over the summer and this is why service is poorer (a lame excuse) then perhaps they should only charge a tenner? As a comparison, even that is considerably more than the FAA's estimated cost of replacing a paper certificate with a plastic certificate. They estimate that at USD 3.59 (in http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/06-9989.htm if you want to dig)

[rateone]

Solar,

If you can arrange it so that your AME visit is shortly after your offshore medical you can use the ECG trace from your offshore medical. I too work in the oil business and being over 40 I need the medical every two years and the ECG. My AME has accepted the ECG from the company medical which I arrange for about 2 weeks to a month before I am due the aviation "cough please".

[Merritt]

Quote:
Great.... Meanwhile ive got to watch a really nice bank holiday weekend pass, watching from the ground despite finishing the PPL 2 weeks ago.

You can always go to the school and ask an instructor to sign you out, as if you were still a student. Most likely you're renting from them anyway so that should be easy.

Can't bring passengers with you though, until you've got your license in hand.

Thanks - I have been offered that from the school but my better half is keen to come up with me so the chances of me disappearing on my own for a couple of hours over B/H is slightly less than nil :(


Steve

[PompeyPaul]

Thanks - I have been offered that from the school but my better half is keen to come up with me so the chances of me disappearing on my own for a couple of hours over B/H is slightly less than nil :(

Amen to that. Notice that the payment for my license went through my account today so at least they've received it and started the ball rolling!

[Slopey]

Backpacker - Offshore medicals - certainly in the UK, if the AME is not UKOOA accredited, he can't do it.
The UKOOA examinations are pretty much similar with (off the top of my head) the addition of Keystone eye tests, audiometry is required for the UKOOA (but not for PPL unless IMC/IR), and it's possible the urinealysis is slightly different. And there's no ECG as standard on the UKOOA.

[Phil Space]

Things might have changed a bit in the UK but I still have stiff grey CAA chopper PPL on the back of an Aussie green plastic thingy.
It seems the CAA dish out the brown plastic for ppl's. Mine was issued in 1981.
My Aussie fixed wing and chopper is green plastic and string:)

[PompeyPaul]

I got my receipt through on Friday that said the PPL license turn around was "10 days".

Which is significantly faster than the 21 I'm expecting...

[MizzFlyer]

BJ said: I stated the quality was poor for the money, it is.
And I thought it was the words on it that mattered, not the bit of plastic it was wrapped in. Humm, call me old fashioned if you want.
The CAA charges are all a stealth tax really. Stands to reason dunnit? I don't remember anyone complaining back in the good old days when a driving licence came in a scruffy little book. Nowadays we get a pretty credit card sized bit of plastic with a hologram and a mug shot - I suppose if the CAA gave those out then new PPLs would be happy. Maybe a free set of gold bars for the eppaulettes, too.
MF

[G-KEST]

Lifes a Beech,

Yes indeed, a D17S Staggerwing................. utter bliss........!!

Now to your gripe. The CAA publish service standard times which they do try to meet. This includes FCL. Write to Graham Forbes who is Head of Personel Licensing if you feel they did not, by a significant margin, meet their own published standards of service. He needs to know.

Usually the problem is an incorrect application in some respects. I have seen a few myself and marvel at the stupidity of some folk, and this includes the examiners............!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whoever said my pension was gold plated needs to think again. It works out at being around 120% of that given to me by Alastair Darling. Put the two together and it means a frugal, but satisfactory and enjoyable, time in retirement.

Thanks for the reminder of that great actor Francis Urquahart. I really miss his talent on the box.

Cheers,

Trapper 69
:cool:

[Gingerbread Man]

Adding a night to my licence is going to cost me £78! I don't think i'm even going to use it (just thought it would add another string to my bow for FTO applications) so am in two minds whether to bother. And all this after my instructor said he was "pretty sure it's free". That really does take the piss. Do they even send you anything back or is it just to confirm that you're not lying?

That kind of money would have bought me another two hours flying in FL where I did the rating.

Ginger ;)

[parris50]

My wallet split in half a couple of weeks ago. I tried Transair to see if they had anything that would do the job but no luck. I happened to be driving up the M23 and thought I'd drop into Aviation House and pick up a new one, fully expecting to get either a flat "no" or to be ripped off for a new one.

To my surprise, the guy at the desk was very friendly and straight away handed over a brand new wallet FREE OF CHARGE!