Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

What has EASA actually done for us?

mh wrote:

If the inspector is a freelance or is working in a company is nothing but semantics.

In the US, where no organization is legally involved in maintaining either a certified or experimental light aircraft, I find a quite significant difference: all the logbook entries and occasional other paperwork are done for my aircraft by an A&P IA friend, generally at zero cost. This is significant to both me and him. Him because he’s happy restricting his A&P activity to friends and fun projects within a mutually supportive airport community, without organizational/paperwork or government/tax hassles. He was not cast off the island by government when like most mechanics eventually do, he started making much more money than he could make as an A&P doing more productive things for a living.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 11 Jun 17:40

Easier IR for PPL
Easier Entry level licence (LAPL)
Easier to obtain a gliders license
Easier transition from gliders to powered aircraft
Easier aerobatic license
Easier transition of aerobatics from gliders to powered aircraft and vice versa
Easier NVFR procedures (in some countries)
Establishment of NVFR (in some contries)
Easier Maintenance (in most countries), except for complex (i.e. twin turboprop aircraft)
Less bureaucracy in validating PPL level licenses by the instructors
Much easier exchange of instruments radios and engine monitors and updating equipment according to CS-STAN on basic aircraft
Much easier repairs according to standard methods (CS-STAN) on basic aircraft
definitely allowing cost sharing / introductory flights in aero clubs by PPL pilots (in some countries)
Much easier inner-EASA acceptance of licenses, working privileges, medicals, etc.
Much easier familiarisation among SEP / MEP aircraft by the pilot (no FI / CRI required anymore to fly a Robin if you only flew pipers before)
Easier certification throughout Europe with CS-23 and even easier with a VLA/LSA.
IFR in airspace Golf
And a couple more liberties that I need to look up because they don’t impact my direct flying.
Still much work to be done, though, but mostly with local CAAs. For instance freedom for amphibious aircraft…
In other words, EASA made the UK way of flying an European standard. Kudos for them!
I must say that thanks to EASA I could do my PPL in France, CPL in the UK, IR in Flanders, MEP in Wallonia, FI in the UK, and transfer my UK licence back to France at the end. Another thing is that I can teach sideslips in France. It was withdrawn from the French syllabus years ago. But thanks to EASA (hem … to the UK) it came back in the syllabus again.

Last Edited by Piotr_Szut at 11 Jun 19:36

And LAA aircraft pilots can fly on the UK NPPL with the medical self declaration, which is a massive concession which nobody else in Europe has.

EASA PPL and LAPL pilots may also currently fly EASA aircraft (with restricted privileges) using a medical declaration for the duration of this exemption.

https://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/1260.pdf

Egnm, United Kingdom

You should add “in some countries” to most items. From the UK perspective, most of the first points in the list are the other way round, in the UK JAR made the IR harder, pre-EASA I did not need a glider licence at all, not an aerobatics rating, nor did anyone need an instructor rating to instruct unless it was for a formal rating or licence. NVFR was technically IFR but you didn*t need an IR. The IMC rating was under threat for a long time but fortunLtely yhe attitude shift in EASA happened early enough for it to continue.

And so on.

And this is why we will never agree.

Biggin Hill

Finding compromises for the whole EASA world always means somebody has to bite the apple and feel to loose something. That is why it is called a compromise. It is not about making the life for everybody uttermost easy, but to find some kind of balance. Given the nasty national concrete-head situation we had only ten years ago, EASA has done a pretty hard and not so bad job.

From here

LeSving wrote:

EASA taking over Annex I would be the worst disaster ever to happen to European GA. The main reason is that EASA, in contrast to the FAA and most other national aviation authorities, just don’t care about private GA.

I think this is vastly different depending on which country we are talking about.

In recent years, part NCO and ELA1 have been extremely useful to many in countries where the national CAA’s were doing what you accuse EASA of. In fact, for several years now, EASA have been much more GA friendly than MANY national European CAAs! If it were for those CAAs, neither would we have “on conditon” mainteinance on engines and props, neither would we have seen the CB-IR and coming up the BIR. National licenses had expiry dates, FCL licenses are for life. Today, Pilots are the ones who decide what equipment they need to carry for IFR under part NCO. and so on.

EASA providing a frame work or at least guidelines which would allow the UL community to have some sort of legal standing outside their own country along the lines of LAPL/ELA/LSA would help tremendously.

And as for other Annex 1 airplanes: It has happened several times that national CAA’s have pulled the rug from under whole groups of airplanes out of pure knowledge that they are Annex 1 and therefore EASA can’t stop them. See the end of historic airliners flying in Switzerland for instance. Under a common EASA umbrella, this would most probably not have been possible.

I know it has been a rude awakening for many, myself at the forefront, who looked at EASA as the devil in person. Well, under the first director it was. In the mean time, it turns out that EASA has become a lifeline for GA communities in many countries which have uncooperative and restrictive CAA’s, some of which were primarily responsible for the madness the original EASA rules were. By now, it is them who are fighting EASA for being to liberal… go figure.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Please, don’t glorify EASA and talk to people working there.
With UvdL there have been many indications EASA turns into EU-LBA.

Last Edited by MichaLSA at 06 Feb 18:41
Germany

I suppose that it depends if you live in a country where the CAA is more or less liberal than EASA is.

After all, the man who turned EASA around is French.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

turned EASA around

There are various jokes around that theme. The best ones are from the Balkans and cannot be posted (Emir knows a good one, not unrelated to certain practices in prisons) but basically the idea is that if you have a choice between

  • having both legs cut off, and
  • having one leg and your genitals cut off

most will choose the latter, and will post on every forum how an advantageous deal they got. Then the guy who introduced Option 2 will become a national hero and a champion of human rights and a progressive rehabilitatory approach.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

People have short memory.

Yes, maybe it is to choose between two types of “evil” but the question simply is what the better deal is.

If you live in a country where without external intervention there would be GA killing measures such as
- compulsory observance of both calendar and hour TBO on all engines, propellers and components
- IR still on 14 exams plus 50 hours flight training even if you have an FAA IR with x-hundred hours flown
- medicals disqualifying a large portion of the pilots population
- IFR equipment rules which make upgrading airplanes to IFR commercially unviable
- you loose your full license after 5 years of inactivity with no prior activity recognized if you want to restart flying
and so on, as it was the case in several countries prior to JAR and EASA

then I guess the perspective is different than if you live in countries where GA is simply left to do whatever they please.

IMHO, much of the discussion is along the infamous Monty Python quote “What have the Romans done for us?” Everyone hates them but have to admit they do useful stuff at times…

In my opinion, Part NCO, Part FCL and ELA have been instrumental in preserving GA at the level it is and even are motivators for people who thought of giving up. I for one would have lost my complete licenses as I was not able to fly at some stage for 9 years and I could never afford an airplane if you have to do a full overhaul every 12 years and prop every 6.

It’s always easy to remember the “good old days” only to find out that memory lane often paints a picture which is far too pink to be true.

We have enough problems in GA than having to deal with some 20’ odd “competent authorities” being left to their own ideas of regulation…

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top