AOPA UK says that in order to rent out a plane it has to be maintained to “Public Transport” standards. They further state that it effectively means the plane needs to have a Certificate of Airworthiness.
Little (stupid?) old me thought for any certified plane to be able to be flown legally, it has to have a valid CoA and ARC (Airworthiness Review Certificate). For me it would then follow that any certified plane that is legal to fly (valid ARC) is also legal to rent out. What am I missing?
So, ELA1 allows the owner-pilot do most of the typical maintenance themselves plus, as far as I understand, it allows “judgement calls” for things like running past TBO, adhering to non-mandatory directives that some CAAs chose to make mandatory (Cessna SID). But, in the end, the plane still can’t be flown without a valid CoA/ARC, and having a valid ARC makes it functionally identical to a plane for which e.g. the TBOs have been enforced. Again, am I missing something, or not?
As the person that is renting a plane from the owner, I basically trust that if it has a valid ARC, then it is safe to fly, and that any maintenance choices made by the owner did not make it not airworthy? Yes, I guess I am free to request all the paperwork and do my own due diligence, but that would assume I know what I’m looking at, and I do not. So, basically, I trust the valid ARC?
As the owner renting out my ELA1 plane that I chose to go past TBO on the engine, do I expose myself to additional legal risks, or, since the plane’s ARC is valid, going past TBO doesn’t matter, because the entity issuing the ARC confirmed that my choices did not compromise airworthiness? What if I chose to perform and sign off the 50 hour check using owner-maintenance privileges? If something goes wrong, am I automatically on the hook, or does it have to be proven that the maintenance was done improperly? What if a shop does the 50h maintenance – do they assume the responsibility?
Bonus question – does it work pretty much the same on N-reg planes that owners do maintenance on?
edited to remove a question that I found the answer to: all EASA aircraft types that qualify for an EASA Certificate of Airworthiness (CofA) are issued with a non-expiring CofA, validated annually with an Airworthiness Review Certificate (ARC).
AOPA UK says that in order to rent out a plane it has to be maintained to “Public Transport” standards. They further state that it effectively means the plane needs to have a Certificate of Airworthiness.
That UK AOPA page says “Much of what follows is based on UK law as it stood in September 2010” and that is probably right. To rent out a G-reg plane it had to be on a Public Transport CofA and the appropriate maintenance.
But that has since changed.
The page is also misleading with this “A non-equity group is a group that operates an aircraft that the group members do not own (i.e. members do not own shares in the aircraft). The aircraft will have to be maintained to PT standards in order to allow group members to hire it.” In reality, the position when that stuff was written was that the PT CofA was needed for (a) renting or (b) any scenario where somebody had a share below 5% e.g. a syndicate of more than 20 members.
AOPA ought to get somebody to re-hack the page so it isn’t quite so misleading.
Unfortunately I don’t know the latest details. Basically anything not explicitly prohibited is permitted so it’s a case of somebody reading the ANO and working out whether there is a prohibition on renting. This stuff is in such a state of flux that I don’t even know where to find the law on it, and it probably isn’t the ANO because EU directives override the ANO. I think anybody trying to summarise these regs today is going to be very busy!
When I was using my plane (N-reg incidentally) for my JAA IR test, Feb 2012, I had to certify that no pilot maintenance was performed on it since the last Annual. I was able to confirm that because I do mine with an A&P friend and he signs the logbook. Owner assistance is always allowed; noncertified people can work on an A380 otherwise nobody could ever train in the business.
does it work pretty much the same on N-reg planes that owners do maintenance on?
There is no issue there. But note that, as with EASA-regs, the only maintenance you can do is the pilot maintenance privileges. Anything above that has to be done by, or under the supervision of, an A&P.
Back in the days of the G-reg Public Transport CofA, N-reg had an advantage in that no extra maintenance was required.
