ch.ess wrote:
The EASA regulation is comprehensive and complete, i.e. national CAAs are not mandated/authrised to add conditions to those areas that have been regulated by EASA (much to the chagrin of, say, the German LBA, who therefore play difficult at every turn).
If EASA does not mandate certain tests, DGAC are not authorised to do so.
@ch.ess If you could point me to a european rule which says that this operational directive is illegal, I will gladly report it to EASA.
Guillaume wrote:
Regarding the IFR test (2 years periodicity) we currently have in France, it’s considered as an “operational directive with a continuing airworthiness impact” (just like RVSM, MNPS, ETOPS…) and such operational directive is allowed per Part-M / Part-M light (M.A.301).
I can only interpret “operational directive” as referring to an EU directive. Note that in M.A.301 5(iv), Competent Authorities are allowed to impose measures “in immediate reaction to a safety problem”. Why would this provision be needed if M.A.301 5(ii) did permit the Competent Authorities to issue arbitrary “operational directives”?
The mention of RVSM etc. appears to be a quote from AMC 5 to M.A.301:
Operational directives with a continuing airworthiness impact include operating rules such as extended twin-engine operations (ETOPS) / long range operations (LROPS), reduced vertical separation minima (RVSM), MNPS, all weather operations (AWOPS), RNAV, etc. […]
Note that all of the mentioned RVSM, MNPS, ETOPS, RNAV… are regulated by EU directives, not national rules!
This is just the usual case of a regulator re-imposing their old rules that were abolished by the EU. Happens all the time.
In some cases this relies on interpretations that are outright silly (Germany: “The Engine is equipment connected to IFR flight, and hence cannot be run above TBO when flying IFR”), this strange interpretation of “Operational Test” is one of those.
Unfortunately, there is no real recourse.
Airborn beat me to it (too busy today, thx)
Cobalt – AFAIK that was the old regime. Under EASA w/o explicit IFR certification (beyond TC) bit pilots responsibility for necessary equipment, there is no such limitation imposed by LBA.
And i would not know how, anyway…
