I’ve just got this from a European pilot who is looking to buy various planes and one of them is an N-reg.
He contacted someone in EASA and was told the following, which I am posting with his consent, suitably dis-identified:
All the N airplanes operating in EU and stationing here are operating illegally because the FAA pretends that an N registered airplane stays in the US at least 6 months/year. Hence, the official said, also the insurance could, in case of an accident, not respond and assume the reponsibility. The official added that EASA is quite intensely working in order to obtain a mutual aknowledgment of the PPL license between US/EU and maybe this will be possible by 2020 but the IFR Rating is not under discussion at the present time.
This 6 month requirement is of course inaccurate generally but I do have a vague recollection that there are specific circumstances where there is a “6 months a year in the US” requirement, but it doesn’t apply to normal operation, with a US owner (or US trust) structure.
It is outrageous that an EASA official should be dishing out this kind of misinformation, but these events are illuminating as to the internal personal views of officials; one has had the same problem with national CAAs including the UK one.
Peter wrote:
He contacted someone in EASA . . .
The reason I posted it here is because it is likely that a lot of other pilots are getting the same “advice” from this EASA department.
It is a bit like the guy who had an N-reg TB10 and heard a similar story from someone inside the UK CAA, so he sold the plane for a knockdown price, and then found out…
Was the source a cleaner in the Cologne office of EASA?
I get the humour of course 
but sadly it was somebody a lot higher up.
On a previous UK proclamation along these lines, something to do with FAA Medicals, the guy had a very detailed Linked In page. He seemed to be very proud of himself but it was clear he’d been promoted far beyond his competence – IIRC he’d joined CAA after a non-flying career in the enlisted British Army. People like that do tend to show desperation quicker than say a career aviation attorney who can hide his cards however weak, and it is humorous to watch. I’d guess this is someone similar.
Desperation is not pretty
@Peter, an EASA Opinion is a fixed term in EASA regulatory framework. A paragraph in an Email does not compose an EASA Opinion.
Plus: This EASA employee clearly says it’s based on an FAA regulation. So it would be merely an EASA employee’s opinion about FAA regulation (at most). Furthermore she is not the opinion that this should be the case, but that EASA needs to work out closer relationships to the FAA.
It is of course FUD, but they should not be doing that, because it scares a lot of people.
I agree, someone new to this without understanding the full details might accept what they’re told by an aviation authority as gospel.
I get hundreds of emails on these topics.
That’s why under the Contact details on my website (which gets ~100GB/month of traffic) I have a note saying that I don’t have time to answer these questions Basically anything on the topics of licensing, EASA, N-reg, etc, etc, is a 5 line question and a 500 line reply. And that assumes I actually know the answer, which frequently I don’t.
The customer facing staff at these organisations have an obligation to know the basics, or say they don’t know. This latest bit from that EASA person (which BTW I have a reason to believe is a view held around his/her office) is standard FUD which one gets all the time from the countless America-haters who enthusiastically spend the generous budget donated to them by the EU member states and who should offer a better service to the people over whom they rule with tens of thousands of pages of legislation.
Living well is the best revenge.
