UK medical requirements for US glider pilots...

[Marc Ramsey]

I'll be in the UK (Cambridge) in late September for a conference, and am
thinking about heading over there early for some flying. I have a US
PPL Glider, but not a US medical, which is not required for gliders.
Will I need a US or UK medical validation to fly solo in the UK? Any
other formal requirements (licensing or otherwise), other than the
obvious check ride requirements wherever I end up?

Thanks,
Marc

[Peter Deane]

Hi Marc

I have flown at Lasham and Nympsfield on several occasions
under instruction and as PIC and was never asked for
medical info of any kind.

Most clubs will ask you to pay a daily membership (usually
ridiculously cheap) but you need to provide the name
of your host club in the states- I used Hollister Gliding
Club but Valley Soaring Assn would do fine too.

Give my regards to Cambridge - Try and get round Kings
College if term hasnt started yet - worth the visit.

Kind Regards

2T


At 21:42 15 August 2006, Marc Ramsey wrote:
>I'll be in the UK (Cambridge) in late September for
>a conference, and am
>thinking about heading over there early for some flying.
> I have a US
>PPL Glider, but not a US medical, which is not required
>for gliders.
>Will I need a US or UK medical validation to fly solo
>in the UK? Any
>other formal requirements (licensing or otherwise),
>other than the
>obvious check ride requirements wherever I end up?
>
>Thanks,
>Marc
>

[Kernow]

There is no glider pilot licence as such, yet, in the UK, so there are
no medical requirements other than the common sense that you use for
driving your car.

Where you fly may be interested in looking at your logbook to make an
entry after you have successfully flown dual to clear you to fly single
seaters. You may be asked what badge you have, silver, gold etc. This
is often a better guide to flying capabilities than hours. Currency is
also of interest. When did you last fly, how many hours have you flown
this year?

When you come back to fly the next day or weekend be sure to seek out
the instructor in charge, it could be different from the one you saw on
the previous occasion as most instructors are volunteers. They will
want to see what the previous instructor wrote in your logbook before
you can fly.

A CFI in the UK is the chief flying instructor of a club, whom you may
well not meet. The regular full category or assistant category
instructors usually do most of the heavy lifting. They are club members
and volunteer for free.

Each UK club has local flying rules, so you should plan to aquaint
yourself with them.

UK clubs are not like commerial glider operations in the US. Plan to
help others launch and stick around to put the gliders away at the end
of the day.

Enjoy

kernow

Marc Ramsey wrote:
> I'll be in the UK (Cambridge) in late September for a conference, and am
> thinking about heading over there early for some flying. I have a US
> PPL Glider, but not a US medical, which is not required for gliders.
> Will I need a US or UK medical validation to fly solo in the UK? Any
> other formal requirements (licensing or otherwise), other than the
> obvious check ride requirements wherever I end up?
>
> Thanks,
> Marc

[Al Eddie]

At 21:42 15 August 2006, Marc Ramsey wrote:
>I'll be in the UK (Cambridge) in late September for
>a conference, and am
>thinking about heading over there early for some flying.
> I have a US
>PPL Glider, but not a US medical, which is not required
>for gliders.
>Will I need a US or UK medical validation to fly solo
>in the UK? Any
>other formal requirements (licensing or otherwise),
>other than the
>obvious check ride requirements wherever I end up?
>
>Thanks,
>Marc
>

Marc.

I hope you have an enjoyable stay in the UK, and that
the weather is kind to you...

Forget all the ill-advised drivel written so far and
have a look at the UK Gliding Medical Standards, which
you can view in the BGA website at www.gliding.co.uk/bgainfo/medic
al.htm

The medical requirements apply to all pilots wishing
to fly solo in the UK.

Al

[Ian Cant]

The UK requirements are quite explicit - essentially,
you need a simple self-declaration form but it must
be countersigned by a UK doctor 'who has seen and read
your entire medical history'. This is probably unlikely
for a US resident. There does not appear to be any
way around this.

For most other non-UK countries, the medical requirements
are stricter, and an ICAO [=FAA ?] class 2 medical
is required. If you have one of these then you are
automatically OK in UK.

Anyone have recent experience [other than ignoring
the law] ?

Ian




At 10:30 16 August 2006, Al Eddie wrote:
>At 21:42 15 August 2006, Marc Ramsey wrote:
>>I'll be in the UK (Cambridge) in late September for
>>a conference, and am
>>thinking about heading over there early for some flying.
>> I have a US
>>PPL Glider, but not a US medical, which is not required
>>for gliders.
>>Will I need a US or UK medical validation to fly solo
>>in the UK? Any
>>other formal requirements (licensing or otherwise),
>>other than the
>>obvious check ride requirements wherever I end up?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Marc
>>
>
>Marc.
>
>I hope you have an enjoyable stay in the UK, and that
>the weather is kind to you...
>
>Forget all the ill-advised drivel written so far and
>have a look at the UK Gliding Medical Standards, which
>you can view in the BGA website at www.gliding.co.uk/bgainfo/medic
>>
>al.htm
>
>The medical requirements apply to all pilots wishing
>to fly solo in the UK.
>
>Al
>
>
>
>

[Chris Reed]

Ian Cant wrote:
> The UK requirements are quite explicit - essentially,
> you need a simple self-declaration form but it must
> be countersigned by a UK doctor 'who has seen and read
> your entire medical history'. This is probably unlikely
> for a US resident. There does not appear to be any
> way around this.
>
This rule is a BGA rule, and so the BGA could decide what you would need
to provide to satisfy them. Email them at .

The relevant form which needs to be countersigned by a doctor is
downloadable from http://www.gliding.co.uk/bgainfo/medical.htm (for some
reason the form refers to NPPL and ballooning, but it is the right form
- I renewed mine recently and checked this with the BGA).

The relevant standard is that your doctor knows of no reason why you are
not medically fit to drive a car.

I'd suggest that you ask the BGA whether such a signed certification
from your US doctor would satisfy them - if so, take their email plus
the signed medical form to the gliding club and hey presto!

Wherever you fly, you should take a winch launch if that's not available
to you in the States - Cambridge has both winch and aerotow, as do all
the other nearby clubs I can think of.

[Andy[_1_]]

Ian Cant wrote:
> For most other non-UK countries, the medical requirements
> are stricter, and an ICAO [=FAA ?] class 2 medical
> is required. If you have one of these then you are
> automatically OK in UK.

In US an FAA class 2 medical is only required while excercising the
privileges of a commercial certificate. I would hope an FAA class 3
would be sufficient for UK gliding as it is far more stringent than
being ok to drive a car.

Perhaps ICAO class 2 is not equivalent to FAA class 2, anyone know?


Andy

[Bruce Greef]

Ian Cant wrote:
> The UK requirements are quite explicit - essentially,
> you need a simple self-declaration form but it must
> be countersigned by a UK doctor 'who has seen and read
> your entire medical history'. This is probably unlikely
> for a US resident. There does not appear to be any
> way around this.
>
> For most other non-UK countries, the medical requirements
> are stricter, and an ICAO [=FAA ?] class 2 medical
> is required. If you have one of these then you are
> automatically OK in UK.
>
> Anyone have recent experience [other than ignoring
> the law] ?
>
> Ian
>

Lasham were quite happy with my South African CAA Class 4 medical and GPL...

Bruce

[Marc Ramsey]

Following up on my original post, I contacted the BGA Office and
received the following from Peter Saundby, BGA Medical Adviser:

====
A UK CAA NPPL medical declaration signed by a US doctor is acceptable.
The only qualification is that the doctor must have seen you previously
and hold clinical records.
====

Thanks for all of the responses, even those that weren't quite right 8^)

Marc