Just had a reply from the Irish Caa on this subject
Dear Ozzieflyer,
We only issue validations for Irish operators.
Please see FAQs on our website www.iaa.ie for the conversion of a 3rd country licence (link below)
This information remains the same regardless of the fact that you previously held an EASA licence.
Please note at this time we can only accept ATPL Exams completed within the last 36 months.
You are welcome to contact us again in another few weeks to see if there has been any changes made to this requirement.
Kind regards,
Nicola Brady
Aviation Officer
Personnel Licencing Department
We only issue validations for Irish operators.
Recalling the history of validations over past 10-15 years, that is not unusual.
Basically you have to get a “job” for an operator on that registry. Doesn’t matter where geographically.
Years ago I was offered an FAA to JAA CPL/IR “permanent validation” (basically a conversion) if I worked as an FI in a certain country of the former Yugoslavia. Apparently 6 weeks would have been long enough. I would have had to get myself an “FI”.
A “famous” UK “aviation personality” picked up an FAA CPL/IR to JAA (Hungarian) CPL/IR validation via working for an operator of a Hungarian reg aircraft, but not anywhere remotely near Hungary.
Handy as it avoided the 14 exams and that has been the Holy Grail of most validations – precisely why JAA and later EASA has made so damn bloody sure that getting around those exams should not be possible. They are 90%+ garbage but they provide a useful restrictive practice which feeds business to the various FTOs which pay money to EU CAAs…
For a few years the Irish CAA converted an FAA CPL/IR into an Irish JAA CPL/IR (or ATPL; not sure). Eventually Brussels found out and killed it. But probably a large number of airline pilots got in through that, in early 2000s.
These routes have always existed but usually you either hear about them way too late, or they are inconvenient if you have a “life”.
