We have discussed this one before a number of times, and it is IMHO obvious that the flight has to be legal and it is not merely sufficient that the cause of the crash was unrelated to the nondisclosure or noncompliance.
Otherwise, you could get e.g. training with a freelance instructor, get all the signoffs, never have a PPL or a medical, and your insurance would be valid and would pay out a €5M 3rd party claim if you then crash into somebody’s house because the crankshaft snapped.
That is self evidently absurd, and would make a mockery of the insurance business because everybody would be insured regardless of qualifications, purely by demonstrating competence. Or they would be insured unless the insurer could prove incompetence. So it is IMHO obvious that just because the policy doesn’t not have a “flight must be legal” clause, such a requirement is self evident. There is a special case in cars, in the UK, where 3rd party insurance is nearly always active, and that was done as a matter of public policy (too many uninsured drivers causing injuries).
In this case, it would hang on how well defined is any landing prohibition. If it is ambiguous, the insurer would probably pay out, specially if the claim was small e.g. below 100k. For example, the AIP is not the law. So it would depend on whether the AIP is backed by Spanish or Portugese law. Good luck with looking for that 
In the end if you can always afford to buy another plane (or don’t have hull cover anyway, which is quite a common scenario, among people who can always just buy another plane) and can be sure of never causing 3rd party damage, and don’t carry passengers…
Also insurance law varies by country. In the UK it is fairly strict i.e. the insurers can avoid payment on a huge range of things, but in reality they choose to not do that because their name would stink on the forums.
Somebody will call me boring and lacking a “live and let live” attitude, but I am happy with that, and this is one of the reasons I don’t fly e.g. a homebuilt (a topic peripherally related to this one) because a lot of the flights which I would be doing would be technically illegal, and more importantly very easily provably so 
Thanks everyone. I think I’ll phone up the Inter Hannover folks and see if they write policies down here. If I start commenting on what I think about European nonsense, well, it will be a manifesto.
I do wonder though, do the European AOPAs have any dialogue with EASA and various CAAs? It seems that people here are resigned to get screwed and don’t say much. AOPA in the USA was recently marked as the “second most effective lobbying organization” in America. When the FAA tries something stupid, we pounce on them with lawyers immediately. When Customs & Border Patrol was randomly inspecting planes in Nebraska….lawyers. The sleep apnea episode for people who really weren’t fat…lawyers. Most of it goes away. Then again, half of American “democracy” is money, so I know that is part of the difference.
If there is any activity here, I haven’t heard about it….except pilots ranting to one another.
European AOPAs do have a dialogue with the regulatory bodies but they are not very effective. Most European countries have a relatively small GA scene, and within each country the community is divided between the various groups e.g. gliding, UL, homebuilts, cert VFR, cert IFR, and each one accuses the other(s) of blocking some bit of deregulation they were after. The UL scene doesn’t like the cert scene, most don’t like the IFR scene, etc. I recently spoke to a GA rep guy who goes to UK CAA meetings and he said the CAA guy told them to not come back until they have agreed on what they want. On another occassion another GA rep was told to not bring back a particular person with him next time. Also certain AOPAs here are more lunching clubs than lobby organisations… Whereas in the USA, AOPA represents everybody and bangs their heads together. And they have the membership size to fund a proper paid Executive, which sidesteps the “volunteer organisation problem” which plagues the European bodies, where “big characters” rise to the top and not all of them are much good. The single language and (largely) single culture of the USA helps a lot too; Europe is nowhere near even remotely approaching a single way of looking at things. Also Europe as a whole doesn’t have an equivalent to the US Experimental category.
So the pilots of Europe sound a hell of a lot like the Parliaments of Europe.
For the sake of fairness, we do have some disagreement. When AOPA was in the throes of getting third class medical reform done (no Class 3 medical needed anymore – just a visit to the family doctor with a form), one of the business aviation associations filed a memorandum opposing it. Now, with the present push to privatize ATC, the ATC unions actually went for it (they usually resist everything). So far, AOPA has steamrolled dissension, owing to a larger voice. That, and lots of Congressmen have airplanes or think they are cool.
We did go through a 20 year period where airports were getting closed at a fast pace. After years of mobilization, that has slowed down significantly and is being watched regularly. Now, the problem is a declining GA pilot population, which will be a death knell in 20 years if we don’t stay ahead of it. That’s the latest push – getting new pilots, etc.
Peter wrote:
We have discussed this one before a number of times, and it is IMHO obvious that the flight has to be legal and it is not merely sufficient that the cause of the crash was unrelated to the nondisclosure or noncompliance.The only thing that matters when it comes to insurance is what is written in the terms and conditions.
The only thing that matters when it comes to insurance is what is written in the terms and conditions.
In Sweden, maybe. Insurance fraud must be pretty big there… I am 100% certain that the above one-liner is not a complete summary of Swedish insurance law, however.
Peter wrote:
In Sweden, maybe. Insurance fraud must be pretty big there… I am 100% certain that the above one-liner is not a complete summary of Swedish insurance law, however.
So you mean that the terms and conditions don’t mean anything? And how can it be fraud unless you misrepresent the circumstances?
Peter_Paul wrote:
AFAIU there is vfr flightplan mandatory in spain!
unless u fly below 1500ft AGL and “claim” u are an UL
Just to clarify, FPL is mandatory only if you plan to enter into controlled airspace.
In some areas this will force you to fly 1000’AGL, but this is not a general requirement. And definitely you don’t have to claim that you’re an ULM.
In practical terms, it is probable that even if you call ATC to cross some controlled airspace with no FPL, they will open one for you and clear you to cross.
Regarding the original topic, as Aart has explained, currently there are no more “ULM-only field” in Spain. Well, almost. Because there are still a few of them that have not been officially adapted to the new regulations and are still kept as ULM-only. Each month this list decreases.
You can check AIP AD 1.3. for the RESTRICTED AERODROMES INDEX to know where you can land with your Cub (apart from the public use AENA owned airports).
The restriction in the title means only that no commercial transport operations can be conducted in this kind of aerodrome, but any plane, annex II or not, is allowed to land.
