Sylvain wrote in
:

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);

Ah, OK. Didn't know that. I have a JAR 1 and they're a year now.

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.

Well, it is something a lot of people are going to need to know about,
but how they're going to find out definitively, I have no idea. It
doesn't really matter to me since I have to have class ones no matter
what, but it's a bit surprising that the FAA hasn't made it clear..


Bertie