Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Anti N-reg provisions - EASA FCL and post-brexit UK FCL

Englishfarm wrote:

As a UK citizen I’m completely free to fly my G-reg plane in France or Germany on my FAA licence whereas here at home it is illegal,

What is the legal basis for flying a G-reg plane in France or Germany on an FAA licence? Do EU countries such as France and Germany (& others) really allow this? Can an American come over to Europe and fly a G-reg aircraft around France and Germany on an FAA licence? I know that it used to be possible to obtain a temporary French licence based on the FAA-licence, to allow flying F-reg aircraft. But that was before JAR or EASA days and even then it’s not the same thing as flying on the FAA licence.

In any case, I’m certain that citizenship plays no role whatsoever.

LSZK, Switzerland

As a UK citizen I’m completely free to fly my G-reg plane in France or Germany on my FAA licence

That was a fully automatic validation of ICAO papers by the UK CAA, unique in the known world. That option ended around 2012, except for non EASA (broadly speaking non ICAO certified) aircraft.

Other countries have/had a similar thing but always involving an explicit validation route, sometimes with say an air law exam etc.

The UK is therefore making permanent their very special and own cack-handed approach to third-country licences for non-commercial operations.

It looks that way. However I have had it confirmed by lots of people in the business that this is a DFT move which was done to pre-empt something and the CAA was given 1 week to implement it. They are not happy about it but the DFT is the boss here. And as is evident the implementation was given to somebody who was out of his depth, hence the various drafting errors.

Everybody I know who knows how this works reckons the move is illegal (e.g. the CAA acted outside its delegated powers, and about 10 other reasons) but nobody wants to be the first to test it openly in a court

That is how aviation works… if the CAA issued an IN saying everybody has to wear pink underpants, it would cause a furore on the forums and would be openly ridiculed, but c. 90% of pilots would go out and get themselves pink underpants. I believe roughly 5% of pilots are ladies and for them it will be less of an issue

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

That was a fully automatic validation of ICAO papers by the UK CAA, unique in the known world. That option ended around 2012, except for non EASA (broadly speaking non ICAO certified) aircraft.

Actually, a bit longer than that. I remember trying to use it in 2014.

It applied worldwide, but only in uncontrolled airspace.

Edit: found the document — the mechanism went away in 2012, was reinstated in 2013, and went away again in 2016.

Last Edited by jmuelmen at 10 Jun 08:42
EDAZ

jmuelmen wrote:

but only in uncontrolled airspace.

I don’t think that is correct….only VFR is perhaps where your confusion arises…

YPJT, United Arab Emirates

Gosh, yes, what a find

Actually not just VFR. Any ICAO PPL/IR could be used with a G-reg, worldwide, IFR, but only OCAS which rendered the IFR bit fairly useless; you could fly OCAS and land IFR at Class G airports… Various threads in the past here.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

According to the new ANO, 3rd country ICAO-compliant license holders can fly G-reg non-EASA types to the full privileges of their ratings (for private flying only). No limit to day VFR appears in the newest ANO. With some LAA permit types now getting night and/or IFR, this may be quite useful.

Last Edited by alioth at 10 Jun 15:54
Andreas IOM

That is an exceedingly well spotted point…

I did wonder how the newly-approved UK G-reg homebuilts will be able to fly IFR in the UK and abroad – obviously even then only in countries where homebuilt IFR is allowed. Without an ANO amendment, the new LAA IFR programme would have been worthless. Can’t allow the airframe unless you also allow the airspace.

Now, they will be able to do it on an FAA PPL/IR … presumably with an FAA Class 2 (or 1) medical if that current cock and bull proposal holds up.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Here’s the law expressly setting out how to fly G-Reg on a third-country licence in any countries which have opted out of Article 12(4) of (EU) 1178/2011 without any kind of paperwork other than your valid third-country licence:

Originally the drafting said:

  • 4. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, Member States may decide not to apply the provisions of this Regulation to pilots holding a licence and associated medical certificate issued by a third country involved in the non-commercial operation of aircraft specified in Article 4(1)(b) or (c) of Regulation (EC) No 216/2008 until 8 April 2014.

this was most recently amended formally by 2016/539 of 6th April 2016 which says:

  • 4. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, Member States may decide not to apply the provisions of this Regulation until 8 April 2017 to pilots holding a licence and associated medical certificate issued by a third country involved in the non-commercial operation of aircraft as specified in Article 4(1)(b) or (c) of Regulation (EC) No 216/2008. Member States shall make those decisions publicly available.
The EASA derogations excel download v32 dated 7th June 2017 says that article 12 now contains a date of “08/04/2019 (provisionally amended)” as it relates to 12(4)

Drilling further into the definitions — Article 4(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 216/2008 says “Aircraft, including any installed product, part and appliance, registered in a Member State”

There are 8 member states who are applying the forthcoming derogation to 12(4) of (EU) 1178/2011 to 8th April 2019 they are: Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands

So to parse (they, the 8 member states) have “decided not to apply the provisions to pilots holding a licence and associated medical certificate issued by a third country involved in the non-commercial operation of Aircraft registered in a Member State until 8th April 2019”

Therefore the regulations are abundantly clear that you can fly an Aircraft registered in a member state (inc G-Reg) in those 8 countries on a third-country licence until 8th April 2019

or more simply stated those 8 countries have decided not to restrict third-country licences for the next 22 months.

The UK and 9 other members have killed third-country licences from their airspace, with the prize for weird over-complication going to the UK.

So it is absolutely clear that as a UK citizen I’m totally free to fly my plane in France and Germany on my FAA licence, but not at home.

Anyone have more obscure law to quote to suggest otherwise?

Good news is that the more obscure, contested, ambiguous, undefined and ICAO-non-compiant the regulation becomes, the easier it is to proceed as you were. Not even the inspectors will ever be able to find the definite regulation saying you were not in compliance…

Proceed exactly as normal.

Last Edited by AdamFrisch at 11 Jun 00:58

Well, we have a bombshell. A total u-turn on the nonsense about the FAA Class 3 being invalid in UK airspace.

ORS4/1228 [ local copy ]

Pages 2 and 3 are absolutely priceless. I reckon somebody’s back end has been massively kicked. But whose? The UK DFT “owns” all of transport related everything, so this had to come from the very top, and probably originating from the USA.

Presumably the CAA still requires that form to be sent in, but it will have to be revised too because it will be inconsistent.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top