One of my responsibilities is the day-to-day supervision of the various pilot examiner authorisations issued by CAA. These authorisations permit the holder to carry out various tests pursuant to Sch. 9 of the ANO. (For the benefit of those who think that Sch. 9 has something to do with income tax let me hasten to add that Sch. 9 lays down the requirements for licence certificates of test—aircraft type tests and instrument rating renewals.)

As you are aware ever increasing numbers of those Sch. 9 tests are conducted on simulators, or more correctly—simulators approved for that purpose. This creates two areas of input from CAA—approval of the device and authorisation of the examiner. The former is normally approved annually and the latter every three years.