Use this forum to flag up examples of red tape and gold plate
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1909905
[usermention=14413]@TLRippon[/usermention] Doesn't matter. One caa board member will get tired fairly quickly if enough do it.
As long as everyone keeps complaining about nonsense (eg years of pages of logbooks with 1000s of hours) just to prove 100 hours of flying, etc etc) on social media or to the CAA coalface, then you are doing exactly what they want you to do.
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By Genghis the Engineer
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#1911254
Now I am getting grumpy. I quote...

>Thank you for your recent application for the renewal of an MEP rating.
>
>Your application has now been assessed and has found to fall short of the following:
>
> We require a certified copy of your EASA licence to be uploaded as the only licence you have provided is your UK
>National licence.

So I have a UK national CPL, I want an MEP rating adding. They insist on issuing an FCL licence when they do so (fine, no problem with that, and I've already paid for a new separate non-FCL licence to be issued ), but have decided after two reviews, to then demand my Irish licence, which contains no information not on my national CPL, and was never listed as a required document when I originally applied over a month ago.

I may formally complain to them later, but it'll of course be easier to get my Chartered Accountant neighbour to certify it for me tomorrow, which I'll do.

Best country in the world for General Aviation...

G
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By rikur_
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#1911262
Do they work to an SLA?
I spent a lot of last year battling the FCA who were just as pedantic. The common belief in fintech is that the FCA officers are encouraged to find the smallest technicality to reject the application on to meet SLA targets: i.e. 'all correctly submitted applications were processed within x working days', yes, only because any that went over x days you found a technicality to reject them on.
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1911377
Genghis the Engineer wrote:Can't prove it, but that possibility had occurred to me very strongly.

G


Hmmm, make Freedom of Information requests for
1) their SLA,
2) their attainments,
3) the number of applications rejected either side of the crucial number of days for processing ??
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By skydriller
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912083
What gets me about anything related to the CAA is when they issued the documents they want signed copies of...I mean, FFS... :roll:
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By Mz Hedy
#1912104
skydriller wrote:What gets me about anything related to the CAA is when they issued the documents they want signed copies of...I mean ... :roll:

Do you not realise just how much is costs them to look in their quill-written index for the location of their copy of the original document, and then to go down to the basement archive (in a different building) to find it? Then they'd also have to put it back again (in the right place!) afterwards.
Much quicker and cheaper to insist the applicant provide a certified copy, or even better to risk the one-and-only original to Royal Mail's "Special Delivery". With luck that also means less applications in the first place.
:whistle:
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By defcribed
#1912331
I wonder if the whole issue can be summarised as a single point that could be raised (constructively) as an outcome to aim for? There is a GA lead, isn't there, that it could be put to?

"In a future state the CAA licensing process should not ask applicants for evidence of, or copies of, documentation that it has itself issued, or that as a result of an applicant's licensing history it already has a record of."
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By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1913796
Another one.....
My new 'employer' requires me to wet sign their Official Secrets Act letter and return this by post to them
The irony is that signing the OSA is purely symbolic, and you are bound by it regardless of whether or not you sign it.
(nb: just critical national infrastructure before anyone thinks I'm doing something spooky)
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1913808
defcribed wrote:I wonder if the whole issue can be summarised as a single point that could be raised (constructively) as an outcome to aim for? There is a GA lead, isn't there, that it could be put to?

"In a future state the CAA licensing process should not ask applicants for evidence of, or copies of, documentation that it has itself issued, or that as a result of an applicant's licensing history it already has a record of."

The only reason i can think of is that they are paying (agency?) staff peanuts and will not give 'read access' to the database at the level needed, but instead, they know we will jump through flaming hoops if they want us to, as there is no viable competition. We want something, they tell us to do something stupid, we do it or don't get what we wanted. What is in it for them to change?
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By townleyc
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1913831
rikur_ wrote:Another one.....
My new 'employer' requires me to wet sign their Official Secrets Act letter and return this by post to them
The irony is that signing the OSA is purely symbolic, and you are bound by it regardless of whether or not you sign it.
(nb: just critical national infrastructure before anyone thinks I'm doing something spooky)


I believe you have just broken the OSA... :shock:

KE
By low&slow
#1913845
Irv, I wonder if when GtE SOLIed his file was posted off to Dublin & the CAA no longer have any record of his original licence & ratings applications to refer to when updating his "new" UK licence.
By DavidC
#1913849
One efficient solution I found is Logbook.aero which allows you to enter your signature once and thereafter can generate signed pages in the format required, PDF or print, ready to upload/send off.

As mentioned above, the student/pilot can sign their own printed electronic logbook pages without the need for certification.

Other logbook products with a similar feature may be available
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By Genghis the Engineer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1914109
low&slow wrote:Irv, I wonder if when GtE SOLIed his file was posted off to Dublin & the CAA no longer have any record of his original licence & ratings applications to refer to when updating his "new" UK licence.


That would have been careless of them, given I hung onto a UK national CPL with the same ratings (apart from aerobatics and IMCR, since those were national only) and also hung onto the same CAA reference number.

However, I can say that I now have both Irish and UK national CPLs with my MEP rating.

The Irish sat on it for about a month, emailed me asking for the ATO's EASA approval certificate. I got that to them the next day, and then they processed my licence in about another 24 hours.

CAA sat on it for 2 weeks, emailed me saying it was initially checked and *probably* okay, sat on it for another 2 weeks, then emailed me asking for a better scan of my logbook (to be fair, the scan I sent wasn't very good), then sat on it for another 2 weeks before emailing me asking for my EASA licence, then within a few days of getting that email phoned me up explaining that the CAA website was wrong and they couldn't issue an FCL licence off the back of my national one.

So they returned that part of the application fee, and a few days later I had my new national CPL, with MEP rating on it.

I'll now need to do yet more paperwork then to get an FCL licence when I have an hour or so to spare. However for now, I can fly anything UK or EASA SEP or MEP, so that's less urgent as long as it's done by the end of the year.

I can't fault the individual CAA staff I've dealt with, but their system is clearly deeply broke. Specifically...

- Surely initial checking should include legibility of the logbook scan
- Somebody shouldn't be asked for evidence that can't have changed (more than 70hrs PiC) and has obviously already been provided (for issue of a CPL)
- Checking should include EVERYTHING, not just return when the first thing is found wrong without going deeper into any application.
- The website should not say CAA can do something, then licencing staff say they can't. There's absolutely no excuse for explanatory information, and internal procedures, not matching. Also there's absolutely no reason I can think of that an FCL licence couldn't be issued off the back of a national one.

G