Aviathor wrote:
his measure has been postponed over and over again since it made it into the basic regulation in order to have a clear path for US license (or certificate) holders to obtain EASA licenses based on their US license
And what clear path would that be? If it was so clear there would be no grips. Flying an airplane in Europe as opposed to the US and visa versa is less dangerous than driving on the wrong side of the road as is done in certain parts of the world.
Here is what I would consider a clear path, a logbook ck for currency and aircraft type flown, an oral as with a BFR, and a check ride in your plane or the type you intend to use.
I know it will never fly. Too simple and not costly enough therefore certain people cant make money off of it.
You cant justify what these clowns are trying to do. Its all about 1. Making money 2. Control most likely in that order.
Aviathor wrote:
I do not agree with that characteristic. It may simply be a (legitimate) desire to conduct oversight of pilots in Europe. If there was a significant amount of EASA reg airplanes in the US, it is likely that the americans would want the same thing.
While the US certainly does not have loads of foreign reg planes, they have lots of pilots whose FAA certificates are based on foreign licenses. At the private pilot level they take the foreign license at face value, without almost zero oversight.
At higher levels you still have to take an exam and/or checkride, but you can do that relatively easily, without having to deal with an “organised course” with an “approved curriculum”.
EASA should reciprocate these processes at least.
C210_Flyer wrote:
Here is what I would consider a clear path, a logbook ck for currency and aircraft type flown, an oral as with a BFR, and a check ride in your plane or the type you intend to use.
What you describe is pretty much how I obtained a EASA IR based on my FAA IR. The “check ride” was however a practical exam.
Judging from the content of the licensing annex to the BASA that was published by the FAA, the procedure for the PPL will probably be very similar to the IR conversion process. The details are however not clear yet as no draft of the IPL (Implementation Procedures Licensing) has been published yet to my knowledge.
There is some speculation as to whether a “skill test” or a “proficiency check” will be required. My guess is it will be a skill test judging from the wording in the licensing annex, but we may be pleasantly surprised.
JnsV wrote:
they have lots of pilots whose FAA certificates are based on foreign licenses.
I guess we can all agree on that an EASA 61.75 route would be nice. That is however not what it will be, so discussing it is unfortunately pointless.
Aviathor wrote:
I guess we can all agree on that an EASA 61.75 route would be nice. That is however not what it will be, so discussing it is unfortunately pointless.
The UK allowed (for now still allows?) one to fly a G reg aircraft privately, day VFR on ANY ICAO licence….with absolutely NO validation or approvals…. Another loss as a result of “European Integration”..,
Aviathor wrote:
I do not agree with that characteristic. It may simply be a (legitimate) desire to conduct oversight of pilots in Europe.
Is lack of oversight even an actual problem that needs a solution? As we can see in France, it is very well possible to do ramp checks on N registered planes according to the FARs in Europe and effect oversight in this way. Saying that a pilot and plane complying with all the FAA rules was still somehow not good enough is pretty arrogant in my opinion, because there are no facts to support this notion.
It is one characteristic of totalitarian regimes that whatever measures they take against you, they will always say that it is for your own good. 
You and Neil have both said similar things. You think that EASA had “good intentions” with this regulation, so the side effects that this has on international pilots coming to Europe are just an “accident”. But you have to judge rulemaking by its results, not by its intents.The article I linked to makes it clear that for people like C210_Flyer, this does feel like sticking a middle finger to you by not accepting your pilot training, your ratings, your experience, and making you jump through a whole lot of unnecessary, expensive hoops regardless of your previous standing as an FAA certificated pilot. I think EASA has recognized that and for now the compromise is to try to make it easier to convert to EASA licences. But it will still entail unnecessary hoop-jumping, no matter how easy they make the conversion process.
Rwy20 wrote:
You and Neil have both said similar things. You think that EASA had “good intentions” with this regulation, so the side effects that this has on international pilots coming to Europe are just an “accident”. But you have to judge rulemaking by its results, not by its intents.The article I linked to makes it clear that for people like C210_Flyer, this does feel like sticking a middle finger to you by not accepting your pilot training, your ratings, your experience, and making you jump through a whole lot of unnecessary, expensive hoops regardless of your previous standing as an FAA certificated pilot. I think EASA has recognized that and for now the compromise is to try to make it easier to convert to EASA licences. But it will still entail unnecessary hoop-jumping, no matter how easy they make the conversion process.
I’m not commenting whether intentions were “good”, but I think visitors to the EU are worrying unnecessarily. I long since stopped listening to briefings and articles written by lawyers. They mostly tell me why I cannot do things, but real life tells me differently. Authorities enforce regulations giving at least some regard to the intentions of the regulation. In this instance they are trying to stop Europeans flying round on foreign licences, and IF there is ever any enforcement they will target this area.
Whether that’s right or wrong is immaterial, and as it happens I think it’s daft, it has caused me great personal cost, time, and inconvenience
The UK allowed (for now still allows?) one to fly a G reg aircraft privately, day VFR on ANY ICAO licence….with absolutely NO validation or approvals…. Another loss as a result of “European Integration”..,
That is still in place for non-EASA (e.g. Annex 2) G-reg aircraft.
I long since stopped listening to briefings and articles written by lawyers. They mostly tell me why I cannot do things, but real life tells me differently. Authorities enforce regulations giving at least some regard to the intentions of the regulation. In this instance they are trying to stop Europeans flying round on foreign licences, and IF there is ever any enforcement they will target this area.
I don’t think enforcement (criminal offence i.e. fines/jail) is the bit to fear. I think most of the national CAAs are even more confused about the “operator” rubbish than anybody in this thread. The smaller country CAAs are bewildered by the thousands of pages of drivel from EASA, and they have nobody who can read it let alone understand it. I really do not think you will ever have airport policemen checking operator residence. Well, in Germany or France somebody just possibly might set up some well briefed teams to p1ss people off and create some jobs… but it’s going to be tough because in so many cases the evidence goes both ways, or can be easily arranged to go both ways. And the whole point of ramp enforcement is to collect fines without getting into debates, not to push people into a court in which the CAA might LOSE. The “enforcement professions” (police/military) have traditionally recruited on a fairly narrow character profile and have thus struggled with getting enough IQ into their ranks for anything too complicated for a 1 page briefing sheet
The issue is insurance and on that you will never get a clear view because the insurers just say the operation has to be “legal” and they are not going to use their €1000/hr lawyers to answer your question on it. That said, I have heard, years ago, from some bizjet operators that their insurers did confirm legality w.r.t EASA FCL, when they set up a non-EU operator structure.
As regards the “finger up to the USA” I think there was an element of that in this. When the anti N-reg part of EASA FCL was being dragged through the Transport Committee, the EU was “negotiating” with the USA on various high level aviation things, and it wasn’t going well. I never found out the exact stuff (nobody involved would comment) but it was believed to be e.g. rights of European cheap airlines to operate in the USA. You can well imagine the USA would not like that…
On top of that there is a strong dislike of the USA among the self proclaimed liberals/intellectuals who pack out the EU federal government. This was always present. Just go back to your university days and count (on the fingers of one hand?) the number of your friends who would admit to liking America. The USA gets equated with Macdonalds, mass shootings, [insert your favourite unattractive activity which supposedly does not happen in Europe] etc and everybody here in power likes to have a swipe at them. Obviously reality rules in the end and they have to work together, but it doesn’t always come easily.
Then chuck in FAA irritation at EASA exporting it’s Part M to various corners of the 3rd World, and being quite good at it. I was at a conference a few years ago, where one of the EASA guys flew off to Venezuela to set up Part M there. You would think that the absolutely last thing anybody with a brain would want to implement would be anything from EASA (given that the FAA system has worked so well for decades and most of the known aviation universe runs on it) but actually what happens is that the poor countries love bureaucracy and paperwork (and hate the “individual choice” principle which underpins the US approach) so are relatively receptive to Part M.
Neil wrote:
I long since stopped listening to briefings and articles written by lawyers.
Which article are you referring to?
Neil wrote:
In this instance they are trying to stop Europeans flying round on foreign licences
That’s obvious, but what I am saying is that they are throwing out the baby with the bathwater, by trying to do one thing and hurting other great principles like those that ICAO is built on. They won’t be able to do what they want without some collateral damage. Obviously the people who wrote this said that they don’t care about any damage they cause. And in my view, I don’t care what they want to achieve, I judge them by the results. Like wanting to catch terrorists, and abolishing a whole list of civil liberties on the way without ever being able to prove or disprove the effectiveness of the measures.
Rwy20 wrote:
Which article are you referring to?
Nothing specific to this thread, but I feel over cautious briefings by self serving professionals are a fact of modern day life. There are seminars being run about all sorts of regulation which are designed to terrify people into paying for consultancy to make things legal.
In our family businesses I can confidently say that had we listened to lawyers all the time we wouldn’t have been 10% as successful as we are. I am not talking about illegality, we are squeaky clean, but the attitude to risk. Lawyers usually advise the path of least risk by highlighting the 0.1% chance of a particular bad outcome.
