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
I am Spartacus, and so is my co-pilot.