Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

countrie's. The FAA have opted out of keeping the 3rd class to that
standard. ICAO haven't changed the rules, th eFAA have only elected to
lower the standards in order to allow a larger number of applicants into
the club and also to allow the certificate to last longer.

Actually, the new duration of the FAA Class-III matches the new duration
of the JAR Class-II (which is just a fancy new name for their old Class-III,
they just removed their old Class-II); i.e., five years it is if you are
younger than 40. Actually, it used to be the case for some national
pre-JAR medical certificates (like the British CAA Class-III before it was
replaced by the JAR Class-II);

I am a bit surprised by your conclusion since I have both a JAR Class-II
(well, I have to renew the dang thing soon which means a trip to Canada,
the closest place with a British AME -- nope, JAR does not mean that
any JAR AME can do it surprisingly enough), and a FAA medical as
well (a Class-II, but then, the only difference with the Class-III
is that I have to do it more often, everything else being exactly
the same);

Note that this is a little pet peeve of mine, since I fly with a SODA,
and have paid particularly close attention to these issues over the
years; I did however met with my share of people who wanted to enforce
their own interpretation of the rules but that's a different story :-)

Well, I'll ask the question to my AMEs (both the FAA one --
since I have the renew this one as well soon -- and the JAR one), they
ought to know, and will report on this if you guys are interested.

--Sylvain