Flying G-registered planes on an FAA PPL
 

I have an FAA PPL and 200 hrs, and have about 60 hours flying in the UK. I have no special endorsements, just a plain vanilla VFR license. Of course I have all the required documentation for currency, medical certs and RT. Recently I have been made aware of this bit of CAA bureaucracy, and I do not really understand it or its purpose. I have been renting and flying in the UK for about 4 years, and had not heard of this requirement until a couple of weeks ago:

https://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33...ice2017029.pdf

Does anyone out there understand what this means? What are they trying to accomplish? This just looks like certification of certification...And there is nothing regarding updating, expiration of whatever cert this might result in, and whether such certification is even really required. Each of the pieces behind this application take time to get, and eventually expire, except the FAA PPL itself (currency, medical) and if I add endorsements, then that would render such a certification obsolete, too. What purpose does this really serve? Is it really “required”? What does not doing this paperwork really mean?

Thanks in advance!

It means that, until such time as you comply with the requirements, you would not be flying legally if you flew a G-reg aircraft using an FAA Airmen Certificate.

This has been the situation since April 2017; I'm surprised that you didn't know about it until now....

IIRC however you have enough hours to do an EASA PPL on paperwork and a skill test.

G

As far as I can see the only thing you actually have to do is the last item, i.e. "demonstrate to a Part-FCL examiner that they have an acquired theoretical knowledge of Part-FCL ‘Air law and ATC procedures’". I have no idea how this is done, but it doesn't seem THAT huge a requirement. It even makes sense (!) considering that both law and the finer points of ATC are different in the UK.

The "English proficient" requirement is on every FAA license issued since 2008 (I just checked mine), and for $2 they will send you a new one if yours is older than that.

I have done some UK flying on my FAA License but it was about 10 years ago, when it was a lot simpler (show up, get checked out for solo flight by an instructor, and off you went).

I imagine getting an EASA PPL is a lot more work - no doubt half a dozen written papers, probably mandatory ground school, plus the skills test which is the easiest bit of the lot.

(US pilots love to complain about the FAA but compared to every other civil aviation administration in the world they are saints).