Aussie pilot validation in USA

[Nards]

I am planning a holiday in the States over Christmas and would like to do a bit of flying around the place whilst I am there. I understand that Aussie pilots can get their licence validated for a period of time (don't want to fly around the countryside with an instructor would rather fill the other seats with my family!) I have seached the CASA website but can't find what I am after and the seach engine on the FAA website doesn't appear to be working. Any help to the links or forms or whatever that tell you how to do this would be much appreciated.

Cheers
Nards

Edited to add: Actually after manually going through the Faa pages I think I have found what I am after here: Airmen Certification: Verify the Authenticity of a Foreign License, Rating, or Medical Certification (http://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/airmen_certification/foreign_license_verification/)

Still after any help with the CASA side for a verification document or whatever the FAA wants from above?

[BackPacker]

You're at the right page. Start filling in forms.

The way I understand things work is as follows: you apply for an FAA license based on your foreign ICAO license. In order to validate your license, the FAA will normally get in touch with your local CAA to check that it's real.

However, apparently both the UK and Australia have privacy laws that forbid their CAA from releasing this information to foreign authorities. That's why the process works a bit differently. You need to contact the CASA directly, and order them to write a verification letter on your behalf. This letter is then forwarded to the FAA, together with the form that you need to fill in.

Now the only thing that's a bit unclear in this process is whether the CASA will forward the form directly to the FAA, or to you - and apparently you can let the whole process be handled by e-mail. Somehow the latter gives me a feeling that it's very easy to tamper with the process.

It's all a bit over the top, really, since the US requires the release of much more information about you something like 24 hours before you fly their way. This was in clear violation of EU rules about privacy but when the US threatened to simply cancel all flights to the US if EU countries did not comply, or hold all tourists at the airport for four hours or more while checks were being carried out, the airlines, governments, consumer organizations and privacy advocates quickly caved in.

Edited to add: I found the following document on the CASA website. Look at para 8.3. http://www.casa.gov.au/manuals/regulate/fcl/010r0801.pdf

[Nards]

Thanks backpacker. WIll give CASA a call and confirm how to go about this. I think I just fill in the form at the end of the FAA link and then either send that to CASA ro send it to the FAA? Not sure.

Cheers
Nards

[BackPacker]

I would start with sending the CASA form to the CASA and see what happens next.

You might want to fill in the FAA form already, make a copy and send that as an appendix to the form you send to the CASA, together with a copy of your license, medical and everything else that might be relevant. If the CASA doesn't need it, they can always discard or disregard it.

But I would not start with sending stuff to the FAA. After all, on the FAA website it states: "airmen from the United Kingdom or Australia must contact their respective CAA to complete additional forms that are required PRIOR to providing the requested information to the Airmen Certification Branch." So without the CASA letter of validation, the FAA can't do anything.