This has come up here before many times, most recently in connection with that company in Morrocco offering to be an operator for the purposes of EASA FCL, to avoid the dual pilot papers requirement.
I have just come across this useful presentation – local copy.
It also explains a bit some of the other things which came up here before e.g. fractional ownerships. very few people seem to understand how exactly these work.
I didn’t read it all, but IMHO all these things don’t change anything about the fact that the typical european light airplane owner is the operator, no matter if there is no official definition of the term. So, faced with the ramp check and asked “who is the operator of this airplane?”, there is just no other right answer than “me”. That’s why I never understood how one can say that the dual pilot papers requirement is unenforceable.
So, faced with the ramp check and asked “who is the operator of this airplane?”, there is just no other right answer than “me”. That’s why I never understood how one can say that the dual pilot papers requirement is unenforceable.
I doubt anybody would disagree with that, but enforcement isn’t done that way. You don’t get a policeman stopping your car and asking you if you have been speeding.
EASA uses the word “resident” and that can mean so many things. Sure, most of us are squarely resident in just our country (resident in all the usual meanings e.g. home address, tax domicile, passport, whatever) but not all of us are. I know a load of people who can truthfully say they are “resident” somewhere else. Especially at the higher levels of aircraft ownership (TBMs etc) you get a lot of people with a foreign domicile. The more money you have, the more incentive to separate out your tax residence from your physical residence from your source of income. You also get a fair number of people who genuinely move around.
When I said previously I can’t see anybody wanting to enforce this, I was referring to the difficulty of catching all the less obvious cases. And everybody in power knows about this, so I doubt anybody will be interested in throwing a lot of money at it. One chap high up in the UK CAA told me face to face they have absolutely no interest in enforcing it, not least because they have no idea what EASA means by “resident”.
Maybe some CAA – most likely the German one, IMHO – may one day want to make a political point, and have a go at it. The French, and to a lesser extent the Germans, have been having a sporadic go at N-regs for years. It’s happened very rarely, but look at how much internet traffic it has generated…
The real risk is insurance, and then the insurer will look into it if there is a high value incident. I have contacted UK’s biggest insurer and their top man told me they have no idea what it means and without CAA guidance they won’t be enforcing it.
So I think EASA just did this to generate FUD, and it has worked pretty well. No lawyer would have drawn up that clause. Especially no UK lawyer. One UK lawyer (who worked part-time for the CAA) told me that he thinks the clause was drawn up in a pub.
IMHO, and this is not aimed at anybody posting on EuroGA, the only people who think the “residence” clause is easy to work (at the CAA i.e. a criminal prosecution level) are the types who like to beat themselves over the head with regs (and there are plenty of those types in GA).
Yes, but 98% of us (European based private owner pilots) are, by all means, resident in Europe…
enforcement isn’t done that way. You don’t get a policeman stopping your car and asking you if you have been speeding.
I don’t get that drift. What policemen do though is stop you and ask for your driver’s license.
Again, when a pilot is asked “who is the operator?” And “where are you resident” these are very clear questions. And if one answers truthfully (again, what else can one do?), then the answer will be “me” and “UK” (for example). The policeman will take note of that and then it is black and white on paper. The rest is a burocratic background machinery starting to roll…
hat policemen do though is stop you and ask for your driver’s license.
Sure, but showing the license is a 100% discharge of your obligations to him.
98% of us (European based private owner pilots) are, by all means, resident in Europe
Maybe so, but approx 3% of UK people have a criminal record. So clearly the whole criminal system does nothing useful for the other 97% so why have it? 
The whole point of criminalising something is to get the few % who break the law. And there isn’t going to be an easy way to work this for the few % clever (and rich) ones.
Actually I don’t think many private pilots will be paying five figures to set up a Morrocan operator, etc. They will either get the EASA papers, or chuck in flying altogether. I’d say a good 30% of IR holders are planning to chuck it in… most of them are 50-60 years old and have had enough of exams. I personally know several private (FAA IR) pilots who are packing it all in.
It will be the bizjet ops who will be looking at this, and they can set up a fairly genuine looking non EU operator structure. Anyway, I bet you that in most cases the two pilots don’t have much idea of who exactly owns the jet.
BTW I think that while 98% may be the case for Germany (= a high level of citizen compliance) you will find e.g. the Brits are way more difficult… the UK also has the foreign domicile concept which is rare in Europe. You can run that for 17 years after you became permanently resident in the UK.
