Well they walked away, so it was a pretty good landing, wasn’t it :-)
I thought the only requirement to purchase an airplane is sufficient money. Since when is being a pilot relevant.
It’s totally irrelevant, obviously. I bought a plane once without having ever had any license or pilot certificate, anywhere. It took a while before I was flying it, I had no idea at the outset who would teach me to fly it, but it ended up being among the best experiences in my life. God helps fools, small children and those with goals 
More specific to this guy, there are a lot of ways for a trained pilot to have no applicable license, being a former military pilot from a foreign air force would be one.
I thought the only requirement to purchase an airplane is sufficient money. Since when is being a pilot relevant.
Of course – “we” all know that. It’s the article which reflects the public disbelief that you can just do that Here in Europe, the public thinks that every little plane is tracked on radar 100% of the time and is controlled by ATC.
Higher up the size scale, you cannot just buy a plane, otherwise we would have loads of 9/11 repeats. Some years ago, there were three old 747s for sale, for GBP 600k each. They were airworthy but had expired on the pressurisation cycles, so they could not go all the way to FL350 or whatever. They were signed off for FL200 or so. The guy who bought them (I knew one of the pilots) used them for a bit as a charter service to ferry pilgrims to Mecca. He ran the whole operation with 5 people on the ground (outside Europe, I should add 
) and had to fill only 20 seats to break even. Now… if it was so easy to buy a 747 for £600k, fill it up with fuel (paid for in cash) and just fly it away, half the Middle East would be doing it and crashing them into buildings.
I’ve only ever had to show my license once and that was to get back airside at Cannes. The security guard didn’t even look at the license itself – just the outer cover and buzzed us through.
There are many airports in France where you need to show your pilot’s license and/or go through security screening. I have been asked for my license at least at the following airports:
Perpignan
Toulouse
Bergerac
Caen
Dinard
Limoges
Avignon
Calvi?
One of those listed has a “very interesting” H24 facility (good for leaving airside, only) which I am not going to talk about here
I think I’ve shown my pilot certificate exactly once, and that was when I was getting a checkout at the Lancashire Aero Club in about 1999 to fly one of their C172s on a bimble around the north of England. (And back then the FAA certs were just these card things you had to cut out yourself, not the fancy plastic credit card ones we have now!)
Another one here
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/pilot-wesley-tierney-who-illegally-12690410
Well, he flew gliders so maybe knew quite a bit
Its nice for the buyer and the airplane to be a happy match. You need to be able to sleep at night. If an airplane I have to sell is too much for someone, or wont work in their situation I would rather not sell it to them than have their money.
alioth wrote:
And back then the FAA certs were just these card things you had to cut out yourself, not the fancy plastic credit card ones we have now!
What? My medical is simply a print out on A4 paper. My PPL license is a awkwardly shaped folded paper. My microlight, glider license and towing rating are essentially nothing but receipts, like the type you get from insurance companies
