FAA IR for Europe based pilots

Phil,
Read/refer to: http://www.pplir.org/images/stories/pplir_files/GA_IR_v2.1.pdf for definitive information.
If you are serious about flying with an IR in Europe, I would encourage you to join the PPL/IR group: the best value for money I spend on flying each year.

I read somewhere recently that if an aircraft is owned or operated from the EU then, to fly IFR, the pilot must hold an EASA IR as of next year?
Is this really true, regardless of the registration of the aircraft?

Yes – this is good old EASA FCL and it has been on the go for years. It is EASA’s in-house finger-up-to-the-USA political project, run by several individuals in there and finally pushed through the Transport Committee vote by an EU speciality called “subterfuge”. I have a running summary here.

The PPL/IR article is a good summary and also covers the long awaited CB IR acquisition and conversion options whose final form is a very recent development. However not everybody agrees with its very strict interpretation of EASA FCL in certain areas. For example some people will be able to arrange a non EU based “operator” and some bizjet operators who I am in contact with already have. A lot of it is in a state of flux and probably will be for years.

I am a PPL/IR member too and pay the £70/year to support their good work, but I would add that if you are serious about flying with an IR in Europe, I would encourage you to participate on EuroGA where we have many IFR pilots from all over Europe

How can they determine what is an EU operator? The N-reg is owned by a US trust. As far as I know they won’t divulge who the real owners/trustees are. How do they establish residency without physically walking every airfield and looking into every hangar over a long period of time to assert what N-reg has been staying there longer than what would be considered “non resident” (and how do you define that – 6months?). It’s unenforceable.

if the aircraft’s operator, which must be an interesting legal definition, is outside the EU the residency of the pilot is not material?

Affirm.

It’s unenforceable.

Yes, IMHO, to the extent of anybody policing it on the ground.

The only way I see it ever being an issue is

• insurance – post-accident, an insurer could do his own interpretation, so anybody wanting to play with this needs to make the usual full disclosure
• some pilot pisses off his CAA and they spot their chance

Also what happens to all the N reg aircraft in Europe, as I understand it you have to have an FAA PPL to fly these , so will the FAA PPL no longer be legal and will these aircraft have to be re-registered? Most of which probably can’t be due to the equipment fit or the cost of bringing them into the CAA terms of reference for maintenance and certification???…

I think what EASA would like you to do is have both their pilot’s licence and an FAA pilot certificate to the fly an FAA registered aircraft, unless you can demonstrate legal non-EU residence in which case you won’t need the EASA licence. The interesting issue for me might become whether a European national authority can determine whether you have residence in some EU country after you demonstrate US residence. I’m guessing they can’t. Bureaucrats have traditionally had a tough conceiving of residence in multiple places in the world at the same time and that might be advantageous.

There are a number of reasons to register your aircraft with FAA other than pilot licensing – for instance avoiding the over-regimented aircraft maintenance protocol under EASA part M. As I understand it there are no indications of that changing at any time in the foreseeable future.

The UK is not like Sweden. In Sweden I have to register my residency with the bureaucrats. In England, not so much. I still have my house in England, I still have a business there and I still file some of taxes there from my Euro jobs. But I’m a US resident, have lived here for years now and file taxes here. How would they regard me? Surely, they can’t demand us to not have property there or earn any money in Europe?

Second of all, any N-reg owned by a US trust is the same as a US owner, entity or resident. You technically don’t own that N-reg plane you entrust the trust to own. It’s a complete US entity. In fact, if you had a rogue trust that wanted to scam you, they’d be fully entitled to sell that plane and escape with the money and you couldn’t do a thing about it except to sue in a US court. You never owned it, they did. So the only thing they can do is go after the operator. How do you establish who’s an operator of it without putting in serious man-hours, legwork and playing Sherlock Holmes at various small airfields? Can’t be done unless they start some new agency devoted to it and raise taxes. CAA personnel won’t have time to snoop around the hangars, they can barely keep license turnarounds below 1 month.