When you pass your driving licence, you’re allowed on the road straight away. Once you’re legally allowed to drive, you don’t have to produce your licence unless you have given an officer reason to suspect you’ve done something wrong, and then you have a certain amount of time to produce your paperwork to a police station of your choosing.

Flying ain’t like that.

For pilots, it is an actual offence to be in command of an aircraft if you do not have on board:
a) the certificate of airworthiness for that aircraft;
b) the certificate of registration for that aircraft;
c) the radio licence for that aircraft;
d) the technical log for that aircraft;
e) the flight crew licence for the pilot;
f) the radio licence for the pilot;
g) a current medical certificate for the pilot.

Which goes a long way towards explaining why I haven’t been flying since passing my test three weeks ago; I’d collected the paperwork and sent it off to Gatwick to be processed, but they hadn’t gotten round to issuing me with a licence.

Until now.

From the left: that’s my medical, type rating, flight crew licence and radiotelephony paperwork.

I have now got me all I need to go flying again. Woo-to-the-muthafukin-hoo.