Allan ~

Several people have given you a little advice regarding licensing. Here's my experience.

You need a US certificate to solo in a glider with a N number.

You can get a US certificate based on a certificate issued by your home civil air authority (in your case, the BGA) or you can go through the testing procedure at a glider flight school.

The reciprocal process takes about 6 weeks or mo the BGA have to send two signed certificates to the FAA with mention of which Flight Standards District Office you will visit to obtain the final papers. The two certificates are certification as to the accuracy of your log book and a statement that you have a license issued by them. There are on-line forms at FAA.GOV. The FAA will take about 4-6 weeks to notify the FSDO you will be going to that they may issue a certificate. Before you can use it to fly solo (or with passengers) you need to take a short check flight with an instructor to "activate" the new certificate. The process could work i a matter of days if the FAA could do their part quickly, but that does not seem to happen.

We frequently told pilots visiting from outside the USA that it was faster (if they were experienced pilots) to go through the testing process. This requires an instructor to endorse you for solo flight, several solo flights (could be as many as 10) and then another few flights from an instructor to endorse you for the check ride. The check ride itself can be done in a day and the certificate (or a temporary version) issued immediately following successful completion of the check ride, but this is more costly.

The difference between the two certificates is that the reciprocal one is based on your BGA license and if that expires, so does your US certificate. For pilots visiting the USA more than once, it is probably better to get the test-based certificate. If you know you will only visit once, the reciprocal one is fine (and cheaper), but it is probably too late now to get the paperwork done in time. Good luck. Fred