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Autopilot Required for single pilot IFR (non commercial) (merged)?

Good morning, I am right now thick into the theory (learning) of IFR here in germany. I find contrary infos about Autopilots on planes which are used for IFR. Do I need by law an autopilot on my plane when I fly privatly IFR ? Scenario will be with me (IFR licence) on the left seat and my wife (PPL) licence on the right seat. Thank you detlev

EDHE

Hi Detlev,

for Germany, the relevant provision is § 32 LuftBO, the required crew provision.

Summary in English: For flights under IFR, the crew has to consist of minimum two pilots licensed to fly the aircraft under IFR. For aircraft with not more than 9 passenger seats, an additional pilot is not required if an additional person conducts the radio communication (who has to be licensed to do so, i.e. has the required radio certificate). Alternatively the two crew requirement does not apply if the aircraft is equipped with an operational autopilot capable of maintaining heading and altitude.

According to § 1 LuftBO, the provisions apply to all aircraft on German registry.

In your specific situation, you will be fine without autopilot as long as your wife holds an AZF (unrestricted radio certificate). The standard PPL BZF I or BZF II is not sufficient. Just out of experience, IFR without autopilot is not a great idea but it can get you started until you upgrade your aircraft. Luckily your wife is a licensed pilot so she can do much more than just radio communication but her touching the yoke on an IFR flight is obviously completely illegal so you are never going to do this...

For flights under IFR, the crew has to consist of minimum two pilots licensed to fly the aircraft under IFR

For private flying, 2 pilots?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

For flights under IFR, the crew has to consist of minimum two pilots licensed to fly the aircraft under IFR

For private flying, 2 pilots?

Yes, read on :)

OK, I have read on

But it is still bizzare. It means that Germany bans single pilot IFR in its airspace unless

  • you have a licensed radio operator, OR
  • you have an autopilot

This provision is obviously being violated by a large % of IFR flights passing through German airspace, and landing in Germany.

Loads of "old" planes don't have a working autopilot (keeping an autopilot working can be very expensive and many pilots regard fixing them as uneconomical) and many flights will not have a qualified radio operator (which in most cases would mean a qualified PPL+) in the right hand seat.

I wonder what other "interesting" regulations Germany has

EASA will put a stop to this sort of thing anyway - one of the very few good things about EASA.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

But it is still bizzare. It means that Germany bans single pilot IFR in its airspace unless

you have a licensed radio operator, OR you have an autopilot

Correct and the autopilot needs to be a 2-axis autopilot capable of holding a heading and altitude.

This provision is obviously being violated by a large % of IFR flights passing through German airspace, and landing in Germany.

LuftBO applies to aircraft on German registry only. Everything with a D- on its tail needs to comply.

I wonder what other "interesting" regulations Germany has

Every aircraft operating under IFR in German airspace needs to be equipped with an operational DME for which no substitution exists. This is being violated all the time by N-reg aircraft (most Cirrus I see are without DME) but it is a severe breach of German regulations and can get you fined with up to 50,000 €. I wonder why it is not being enforced so far.

EASA will put a stop to this sort of thing anyway - one of the very few good things about EASA.

Indeed and I am about to change my opinion about EASA if they really move forward with FCL.008 and a new Part M for private operators. A lot of good has come from the EU but that's not a popular point of view.

most Cirrus I see are without DME) but it is a severe breach of German regulations and can get you fined with up to 50,000 €. I wonder why it is not being enforced so far.

Same in the UK.

My opinion (not worth any € ) is that the CAA has not prosecuted anybody because the law says "distance measuring equipment". It doesn't say e.g. "DME P/N Honeywell KN63" etc etc. It doesn't even say the distance has to be measured by pinging a ground beacon, etc.

And any lawyer who is not stupid would point out that a GPS reads out the distance just fine!

And if the CAA lost (which IMHO they would) it would open the floodgates to all kinds of US-style ADF/DME-GPS substitution on the equipment carriage regs, and also would allow NDB and VOR approaches to be flown with just a GPS (as most Cirrus pilots, in fact most "real" pilots, even those who do have the old equipment) do already It would probably make a lot of aviation equipment regs unenforceable because "everybody" knows they are silly.

It would also halve the amount of training which an FTO currently does for the JAA/EASA IR

The CAA cannot IMHO risk playing that card.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

My opinion (not worth any € ) is that the CAA has not prosecuted anybody because the law says "distance measuring equipment". It doesn't say e.g. "DME P/N Honeywell KN63" etc etc. It doesn't even say the distance has to be measured by pinging a ground beacon, etc.

The German regulation is more specific:

Funkentfernungsmessgerät (DME-Interrogator)

"radio distance measuring device (DME interrogator)". I don' think you could argue that a GPS can perform that job.

My opinion (not worth any € ) is that the CAA has not prosecuted anybody because the law says "distance measuring equipment". It doesn't say e.g. "DME P/N Honeywell KN63" etc etc. It doesn't even say the distance has to be measured by pinging a ground beacon, etc.

I would be very surprised if distance measuring equipment was not defined somewhere to mean certified DME receiver.

EGTK Oxford

Thank you very much Achimba and Peter, those are not good news for me. My wife and I have made the PPL mid this year and have bought a Beech F33A of our flying school. The plane was used by Lufthansa and this school for 2 decades as a trainee for IFR pilots.The Beech is equpped with all kind of avionics, but no autopilot. We flew around europe with it this year, germany, austria, alps, croatia, slowenia, slowakia, tschechia,hungary and poland, what a great time we had together. Because of the unreliability of the weather I have started now with the IFR course.Only by reading new books I have stumbled over the AP question. My flight instructor has told me that I don't need one when flying privatly, which seems to be incorrect now.This is a serious problem now as I don't want to invest 30K or more for such a piece of equiptment. As my wife will not make a AZF due to language problems I don't know really what to do now. regards detlev

EDHE
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