UK FRTOL Validity

[athonite]

Can anyone enlighten me on the following. I was under the impression that prior to JAR-FCL, a UK FRTOL was valid for life on a UK PPL as is the UK PPL.

Q1. At what stage was a FRTOL only valid for a limited period?

Q2. Does a subsequent upgrade to a UK BCPL, UK CPL, UK ATPL complicate or compound the issue?

Q3. Does a UK FRTOL issued prior to JAR-FCL have any legal status in terms of grandfather rights?

[Whopity]

An interesting question. The UK ANO defined the maximum period of validity of a FRTOL to be 10 years yet the CAA issued them for a time to PPL holders with "lifetime" validity. The question then is what is meant by "lifetime"? is it the lifetime of the holder or the lifetime of the licence to which it is attached? Lifetime FRTOLs were only ever issued to PPLs who held a lifetime licence. In some cases the FRTOL stated that it was valid for life when used with pilots licence number XXXYZ. If you let that pilots licence expire or changed its number i.e. the old 5 figure number to the current 7 digit number then the FRTOL ceased to be valid.

When the JAA licences were issued for 5 years, the FRTOL was issued for the same period on the grounds that both licences would be re-issued together. The stand-alone FRTOL is still valid for 10 years.

PPL holders who upgraded to commercial licences were issued with a new FRTOL having a validity to match the validity period of the commercial licence; initially 10 years then 5 years. The HF restriction was also removed.

A lifetime FRTOL is effectively still valid if the conditions listed on the licence are met i.e. if you still have a valid PP56xxx and that is listed as the accompanying licence in the FRTOL then all is well but the chances are you now have a new 7 figure number especially if you were issued with an English Language endorsement last year, then the old licence will no longer be valid. I have one that falls into this category.

There have been so many different variations of the wording over the years that you would need to read it carefully. Some may stand up in a court of law, others won't.