Just spoken to the appeal court. Timescale for PIP tribunal is approx 41 weeks. Methinks they need more staff! Also you can "Track my appeal" via internet or text which sends you updates automatically, you need to set it up with tribunal court. It might save alot of time waiting for your call to be answered.
I wonder if a paper appeal is any quicker. Last time I did that it was really fast, around 8 weeks. 4 weeks for DWP to send the bundle then appeal 4 weeks after, I did write to appeals and tell them please go ahead ASAP as no further info to add. They seemed to sent it to a appeals court which was far away and maybe had no backlog? as they did that with a friends as well. Not sure if still is as fast though.