Congrats! Nice plane!
What a beautiful idea on how to get the family involved. Made me think….is it a special sticker? My plane’s still naked 
OK; read the thread now. Not sure which part is “self inflicted” unless you want to argue that it could have been left on the original reg?
We have so many posts arguing this is just a “paper exercise” – this is one of many – but I know it often isn’t. It’s just rare for someone to post that his wasn’t.
Congratulations on the new ride.
The story is something that I can identify with. In my case, change from Finnish to German registration, with a still valid ARC, didn’t take that long. Finnish de-registration was quick (one week). Getting the radio license was 4 weeks, which usually takes one week. Registration approval from LBA was surprisingly quick at less than a week, especially given that they are warning of delays on their website. On a whole a bit over two months, which I don’t think was bad. The paperwork and ground work was done by a CAMO. It wasn’t cheap but they did thorough work I reckon.
Congratulations! Fly safe!
Thanks for your kind words :)
@UdoR it’s all adhesive foil. However the logo and text are not printed but rather composed of separate pieces of plotter-cut monochrome sheet. It is supposed to last much longer this way. They do custom graphics on cars the very same way.
My changing the reg could be called just a paperwork exercise, in the sense no CAA inspector turned up (or wanted to turn up) to see the plane.
The exercise however takes longer than one might think, because there are so many steps involved and optimizing the whole procedure is surely at the very bottom of government priorities. For example, at least here, you can’t apply for a certificate of airworthiness before your certificate of registration is issued. So I have sent an application for CofR through an e-government platform, which was very convenient … but then I got this call and a lady working on my papers kindly informed me she needs my explicit authorization to reply in paper. Well, of course, yes, please, surely it’s good to have a paper CofA on board with all original stamps and signatures. But then it all gets into the CAA’s postal queue, they need a return receipt … and I am not at home when the postman calls … and so on. Of course you can be proactive and call one CAA department every day to ask if your papers are already processed “in the system”, so that you can start bothering the other CAA department at the right time. Perhaps I could have spared a week or two this way, but I thought it was not worth it.
In my case almost half of these 8 months was setting up maintenance, waiting for a slot at the workshop and performing actual work that was due (… and other work that I wanted to do). Seemingly I couldn’t run it in parallel with the longest step of registry change paperwork – obtaining a new CofA. That’s a big paper exercise, because a lot of papers have to be passed to CAA. But among other things, the CAA wants the current aircraft status and they told me they can only issue CofA for an airworthy plane (which they understand as no pending items in the status, as compared to the AMP you send them as well).
That struck me as a bit strange, because I thought an airworthiness certificate is only valid together with a current ARC and so my reasoning was maybe I can deal with CAA at the same time my CAMO/AMO is working on the plane and towards issuing an ARC. Alas, no. Again, maybe if moving planes across registries was my daily business…
If I paid someone whose it is daily business, it would surely have gone faster. But that’s not how I wanted it, I wanted full control and if it cost me extra one or two months, I’m still fine – that’s the self-inflictment bit ;)
Bosco – I still don’t get which part is “self inflicted”. It looks like a lot of stuff which added up. Some of it may have been done in parallel. But in the end somebody has to manage it, which is why we are seeing reports of 5k-10k even for an intra-EASA transfer. This thread touches on EASA-EASA too. I never believed EASA-EASA was easy, and I am fairly sure you have been told about one case (which cannot be published) which pretty well demolished the value of the plane, and which was “solved” only with a bit of “interesting maneuvering”, and the plane was sold extremely fast after that 
There will have been many other such cases, never discussed. Even if the plane is sold immediately, you don’t want the new owner to find out.
they told me they can only issue CofA for an airworthy plane
That is quite ambiguous
My changing the reg could be called just a paperwork exercise, in the sense no CAA inspector turned up (or wanted to turn up) to see the plane.
Why did you do it in the first place?
You can base & fly Slovenia PA28 in Poland
Looks like a nicely equipped and maintained example. Was the fuel tank removed to fix a leak or for access to the wing structure? Hope you enjoy the plane!
The bureaucracy described is completely nuts. When I see the adverts for Italian registered Marchettis, unflown and unsold for years in Forli, I ponder why they aren’t sold (other than to @Norflyer who posted his subsequent restoration process on EuroGA). It’s maybe easier to understand once you study what’s involved for most buyers. It might be worth verifying that deregistration is not required if the end result will be Experimental-Exhibition registration in the US.
Ibra wrote:
Why did you do it in the first place?
You can base & fly Slovenia PA28 in Poland
Chiefly because I wanted the plane to be maintained by very particular people (that I trust), both in terms of paperwork and actual work. And these guys didn’t want to be dealing with another CAA, one seems enough for them :)
Was the fuel tank removed to fix a leak or for access to the wing structure?
A short flexible hose connects the fuel tank to metal fuel lines in each wing. The records I received were not consistent in regards to when these were last changed. Turned out we looked in the right place – the hoses appeared somewhat tired and were certainly older than AMM recommendation (7 years). So we replaced them, although they were not leaking … yet. Also I did want to know where exactly I am standing in terms of corrosion and general airframe state.
Thanks for the info @Mateusz. I have one hose very much like that on my plane, although it’s a fuel filler overflow hose not a supply hose, and it hasn’t been replaced since 1971. It was unfortunately built into the wing in a way that makes it almost impossible to replace without cutting metal, even after the fuel tank is removed. I was able to replace the same hose on the other wing when it leaked, without cutting any holes, but a certain amount of luck was involved and afterward my hands looked like they’d been through a meat grinder Another owner of the same type added access holes in his wing skins instead, with all the approval hassles involved.
Happily the fuel supply hoses on my plane are easily accessible at the wing root without tank removal and were changed for indefinite life hoses by a previous owner. The overflow hoses are less critical.
