There requirement for a flight plan for controlled flights is not new. It has always been in Annex 2 and SERA doesn’t change anything in that respect. For short flights in controlled airspace, like arriving/departing VFR in a control zone, an abbreviated flight plan sent over radio in the form of a clearance request is usually acceptable. However, that has always been up to each national authority to decide. SERA doesn’t change anything in that respect either – unfortunately.
So in the end lots of magazine articles that have already been published about the new SERA are completely wrong, because of all these national exemptions…
The problem seems to be that several countries are making illegal changes to SERA. It will be interesting to see how EASA and the EU administration will handle that.
It will be even more interesting if a pilot follows SERA but ignores illegitimate national changes and a court case follows (e.g. as a result of disciplinary action).
It will take time but it will work out eventually. The moment there are still a lot of national law making bodies for aviation even though the national authority is now gone due to the EU’s empowerment to regulation aviation. These people serve no purpose but they are the last to realize that.
In the US, no state questions the authority of the FAA (F = federal) and the states don’t even have employees that could produce competing legislation. We’ll get there eventually like we’ve done in other areas where the EU is in the driving seat. Think about merger and monopoly control, the EU has that very much under control. It always follows the same routine:
1) surprise
2) denial / sabotage
3) resignation
In the US, no state questions the authority of the FAA (F = federal) and the states don’t even have employees that could produce competing legislation.
I know there have been attempts by some states to introduce aviation legislation (sorry, can’t give references) but they have been smashed by the federal government.
Achim, the US is one country. Europe isn’t. We are a very long way from a Federal Europe as this thread indicates.
I wonder how much single rules of the air that SERA actually brings?
Different countries used to have different rules. But my feeling now is that SERA has not done that much to change that.
What was the problem that the legislators wanted to fix by introducing SERA?
Yes Jason but as I mentioned the EU is able to gradually gain control over areas. Look at monopoly control, that was the same struggle and now the national bodies are pure executioners. The difference between the US and the EU is not that large, we have distributed law making power and we have a supreme court that stands above all national courts. The areas of responsibility are obviously very different when comparing the US federal government and the EU and while in the US the responsibilities are long established and rather fixed, the EU are still young and work in progress.
The US are also full of these competency struggles, see gay marriage, marihuana, etc.
It seems to me that SERA is a waste of time, since it doesn’t do what it says on the tin – with all the national exceptions, it’s hardly a single set of rules of the air. It’s a complete farce.
I disagree. I think SERA is OK. The exemptions I have seen so far are minor details of pure operational or tactical importance, practicalities really, in details that hardly ever will happen. And no one will be busted for breaking them. The rules are the same all over.
We should rather set up a list of all differences and see what rules actually are broken.
I went through the regulations and found 28 differences applicable to GA.
If I set up an online spreadsheet, will people contribute to completing the set of differences for each country?
