Any UK examiner that was a six himself, could sign you off as a six. That was essentially the gist of the grandfathering scheme. But I have no idea whether this scheme is still alive today (and Whopities post kind-of suggests to me it isn't - but the CAA would be able to clarify that for you).

If the examiner can't sign you off anymore (maybe because the scheme has expired) or if you're not a six, you're due for a formal exam at a language institute. Expect somewhere between 100 and 160 euros for such an exam, and a duration of about 20 minutes.

(I seem to recall that there was one further limitation, but I'm not quite sure about it anymore. The examiner could sign you off, but only during some sort of flight test. So if you visited the examiner just to get his signature for a revalidation by experience, that visit was deemed to be too short for the examiner to make a proper assessment. But as I said, I'm not sure about this. I do recall that the wording on the regulation was rather vague about it though. In any case, *instructors* have never been able to sign you off, only *examiners* could do that.)

Not sure if I mentioned this before, but the first time I ever came across this for myself was when applying to the CAA for the initial JAA IR, Jan 2012, when it was discovered I did not have the Level 6 signed off. The IR examiner (CAA staff FE) did it then.

Maybe I had it from the various previous check flights etc but it doesn't look like anybody kept a record, and the CAA certainly didn't.

I'm pretty sure your bank got to identify you in person at least once and then gave you some secret keys or gizmos to later identify yourself on the phone (or the 'net). It would be pretty daft for the CAA to do the same and then send you home to do the actual test over the phone, wouldn't it? :ugh: