FIKI certification in Europe - what does it mean?

arj1 wrote:

Then it contradicts that quote “It is often impractical to plan a flight in a way that leaves no possibility for icing conditions to be encountered”.
I mean I read it as: if you see ice forming – get out!

Would not say so. There is a difference between planning and flying!

It is – as they say – impossible in many weather conditions to plan a flight that surely keeps you out of icing (or thunderstorms) if you fly the planned route. Therefore commencing a flight that is planned to take you through icing areas is not illegal. As EASA says (rightfully in my opinion) on such a flight you have still to have a plan to keep you out of icing (and not only to get you out of it) while doing the practical flying. Not entering visible moisture in the critical temperature ranges is one of such plans.

It is no contradiction if EASA says “The plan might lead you through Ice, the practical flight must not”.

If, e.g. you have to fly through a scattered cloud layer that is highly likely to contain ice, your plan could be to just tactically stay out of clouds. If the layer, however, is OVC this is not a valid plan and you need to think about another one (e.g. fly there to check if it is really OVC and divert if so). What you must not do, however, is to fly into this layer if you have to expect icing there.

In EASA initial IR test you have to brief the examiner on how to deal with icing on every phase of flight? given that most of the skill-test are done in non-FIKI aircraft and sometimes in real conditions, I am assuming an average prosecutor will come after the guys as they are “expecting ice” where both the student and examiner are carelessly conducting their flights in hazardous clouds

So to summarise EASA NCO interpretation,
- If you are flying non-protected aircraft and you see ice run away (even if it’s +20degC OAT and sunshine who knows )
- If you are flying non-FIKI turbo TKS do yourself a favour and punch through a frozen stratus layer to get on top if you can
- If you are flying FIKI you have lot more options (last time I decided to go into a silver aircraft did fine but I lost comms)
- If you are pushed bellow MSA because of ice risk, do yourself a favour climb 1000ft and go for ice rather than terrain

T28 wrote:

Well if the court decided to award damages, it must have found that the pilot’s actions have voided the insurance contract… so whether the insurance refuses to pay outright or pays and then sues the party or its estate to recoup costs the end result is the same and is due to voided coverage

The end result is certainly not the same! The insurance company pays pax, the aircraft owner and 3rd parties outright. Then it goes after the pilot. From the point of view of the policy holder (the owner), this is a very substantial difference. Particularly if the pilot goes bankrupt.

If the coverage actually was void, then the insurance company would not need to pay anyone anything but leave it to the injured parties to sue the pilot themselves.

Let me rephrase. The insurer has an obligation to pay the damage to the affected third parties. The insurer will then recoup its compensation from the policy holder (i.e. the pilot). So to the policy holder the end-result is the same – liabilities are not covered by insurance in case of gross negligence.

In your case the club is not a policy holder – its members are collective policy holders by virtue of their club membership.

I think the gist of the discussion was liability coverage from the policy taker point of view.

This is country dependent.

For example in the UK a person named on the policy cannot be pursued by the insurer.

Otherwise, the insurance would be worthless. In countries which have the “gross negligence” option operating within aviation law, there is indeed a problem, resulting in the insurer perhaps paying out only partly – as discussed in the thread on insurers.

Ibra wrote:

In EASA initial IR test you have to brief the examiner on how to deal with icing on every phase of flight?

The very same examiner in the very same skill test will also ask you, what you’d do if the AI fails – does this also indicate it is legal to fly IFR with an inoperable AI?

In a initial PPL skill test the examiner will very likely ask you what you would do if you find yourself in IMC. Does that imply that an Instrument Rating is legally worthless because you are allowed to fly in IMC just with your PPL?

Ibra wrote:

- If you are pushed bellow MSA because of ice risk, do yourself a favour climb 1000ft and go for ice rather than terrain

Same is absolutely true if you are pushed too low due to airspace above – but that doesn’t say it’s legal and you can’t be prosecuted for that airspace bust!

@T28 wrote:

Let me rephrase. The insurer has an obligation to pay the damage to the affected third parties. The insurer will then recoup its compensation from the policy holder (i.e. the pilot). So to the policy holder the end-result is the same – liabilities are not covered by insurance in case of gross negligence.

In your case the club is not a policy holder – its members are collective policy holders by virtue of their club membership.

What do you mean when you say the club is not the policy holder? The club owns the aircraft. The name of the club is on the policy. No member names are on the policy. (Actually, the insurance is valid for any pilot, not just club members.)

Malibuflyer wrote:

The very same examiner in the very same skill test will also ask you, what you’d do if the AI fails – does this also indicate it is legal to fly IFR with an inoperable AI?

Yes I agree, I was just trying to expend on using “expected” or “forecasted” on the ground to define privileges and legality
Highly unlikely that the rules for icing relates to any “planning minima”, you just deal with it like an INOP AI

Malibuflyer wrote:

Does that imply that an Instrument Rating is legally worthless because you are allowed to fly in IMC just with your PPL?

I am not aware of any “clouds & visibility legal planning minima” for PPL, maybe except SVFR clearances?
Most of the time PPL is reminded to stay 1000ft from clouds but you can’t enforce that on the ground on the basis that the aircraft or the pilot is “VFR only”?

I am sure the VMC rules do not mean you can’t fly on PPL if low clouds/visibility are “expected” or “forecasted”, although in the eyes of the typical Aeroclub president (not Airborne_Again style ) or an instrument pilot dinosaur, he may tell you “looks son, you see that tiny single cloud over the horizon, I suggest you push back that aircraft back into the hangar as it’s illegal for PPL to fly in clouds”

@Cobalt wrote:

Also, not many instrument instructors these days have piston de-icing experience – they tend to fly jets or have come up the instructor route and have rarely seen a cloud from the inside, let alone icing, so you are on your own…

That is absolutely true. Two stories: While doing my practical IR exam I was flying with an examiner who was completely panicking when we got some light icing during the examination flight with a C182. As he has lost situational awareness before (thinking we are at the IAF of EDSB while we have been over the Black Forest closer to EDDS than to EDSB) it was really dangerous and you can imagine, to stay calm with someone being in panic beside you while having the first time icing experience is not so easy.

Then a friend of mine did her IR trainings flights on a Cirrus (FIKI) with an instructor on a day with forecasted icing conditions around FL 70 but he didn’t check the forecasts, she believed on his experience and didn‘t do it either and they came into icing. Then the trouble started, because they didn’t fill the TKS tanks in advance. And you can imagine after reading my first story what happened. The instructor didn‘t panic completely, but was not really having things under control any more. Now she is frightening about ice, even if there might be only the slightest indication of ice in the forecasts.

So as you wrote, to find instructors who know how to deal with ice practically in a small aircraft and to do it together with a student is rarely found. I tried to fiend someone when doing the MEP and flying a Seneca with boots afterwards without success and after we bought the Bonanza with TKS, the same.

Maybe it is because of the discussed legal status. But I think if freezing is forecasted above let’s say a layer of 3000-5000 ft of positive temperatures above ground it would be a great help for a beginner to fly straight into the forecasted icing area to see how the anti-ice and de-icing equipment of the plane works.