They can always arrest you on suspicion of having committed an offence – any offence – so long as they suspect you.
I’ve not seen or heard of the police doing any routine checking of what people are out and about for, at least round here. They only seem to get involved in the most flagrant of breaches that one reads about in the national news.
They turn up 100% at Shoreham for any inbound foreign arrival, including when somebody flew approaches in N France without landing. I don’t think they bust anybody for that; they just have little work to do. I am told shoplifting is down 97% – one has to wonder why 
My home airport has been receiving (Jet A1 burner) flights from within the EU Schengen area. There could be plenty of reasons why that would happen.
Peter wrote:
They turn up 100% at Shoreham for any inbound foreign arrival
Is that just during covid, or was it always thus?
IME the former. They would turn up 100% if you didn’t file the GAR form, but rarely otherwise.
Is that just during covid, or was it always thus?
In Caernarfon EGCK, it’s always thus (at least was up to 2 years ago….last time I was there).
They have/had a policy of meeting every aircraft from abroad.
dublinpilot wrote:
In Caernarfon EGCK, it’s always thus (at least was up to 2 years ago….last time I was there).
They have/had a policy of meeting every aircraft from abroad.
Indeed, some interesting policies at North Wales Police.
Back in the days when I did club flyouts, a couple of us flew into Mona (EGOQ) one day to meet up with some other club members who were flying back from Northern Ireland.
We arrived shortly after they did, and the Police were just finishing up dealing with them. They started tearing strips off us, really quite aggressively, for not having contacted them. I said that we were from White Waltham EGLM, that it was a domestic flight and there was no requirement to notify them. They flatly refused to accept this was the case, and I can still recall the guy’s actual words “nothing is allowed to land here without notifying us, ever.” For the avoidance of doubt, this was North Wales Police, not MoD or RAF Police (Mona is an RAF station). I bit my tongue and promised to notify them if I ever came back, which of course I have not.
Latest guidance from the UK DfT:
New Guidance from DfT detailing the roadmap to recovery.
Currently:
Those students with a genuine plan/ambition to go on to commercial licences/ratings may receive dual flight training towards PPL(A), associated ratings, and may self-fly hire building hours towards CPL(A) course minima.
You may self-fly hire for work purposes.
FI and CRI rating holders may fly to maintain currency.
From No Earlier Than 29th March:
Leisure/recreational self-fly hire may resume, flying either solo or with a member of your household or bubble.
From No Earlier Than 12th April:
Flight training for all pilots, and flights with an instructor, can resume.
The bottom line is that this is guidance only and has no legal meaning. The underlying law, as discussed further above, is the restriction on leaving your house (for essential reasons only) but the list of reasons is non exhaustive, so no law actually says you cannot travel to the airport and fly from A to B if you believe it is a good enough reason. So IMHO the key date will be when the “can’t leave house except for a good reason” gets removed, and it looks like the date is 29th March, as referenced above.
And a good enough reason must surely be to maintain the currency of your PPL into which you sunk 10-20k.
However we will likely see airfields following this “advice” and restrict activities.
UK gov. – ending of GA restrictions.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-general-aviation/coronavirus-covid-19-general-aviation
Thanks… you found the source for my text above, which I could not find.
It is disappointing in the usual deliberate vagueness. There is no law which says you have to stay at home, for example.
But at least 29th March is the date after which the police should not be able to hassle people.
