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LAA Permit Aircraft stationed abroad

In Norway there are no difference between a private light aircraft (Cessna for instance) and a homebuilt regarding maintenance. They are all maintained according to the same regulations. The difference is who is allowed to do what, or more precisely, who is allowed to sign the papers keeping the aircraft airworthy. If you have built the aircraft, you can do it yourself. If you sell it, you can also do it for the next owner, but the next owner cannot. Usually though, people get a local mechanic or shop to do maintenance when purchasing a pre-built homebuilt, one that is willing to do it, not all are.

With the relaxed new EASA regulations, the benefit of homebuilts regarding maintenance seems to become lesser. At least for second owners, which most homebuilts ends up as. There are much more flyers than builders

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

@italianjon: what they really want is to respect amateur builders’ desire to build their own aircraft but at the same time not create a large loophole for aircraft that are neither certified nor meet the UL conditions. Hence the various rules that make it difficult. They do not want pseudo-homebuilts to be sold in large numbers and used like normal aircraft, they only want to enable amateurs to build their own.

You can see that these loopholes do have problematic consequences. In the US you can fake-build your own aircraft. One reason the US are so much behind on developing new certification standards is that GA has already moved to the gray homebuild area for a large part.

Last Edited by achimha at 20 Aug 16:14

If you sell it, you can also do it for the next owner, but the next owner cannot

This however depends on the regime. Under G-reg there is no difference. And, FWIW, under N-reg (US Exp) the difference is trivial – you just need annual A&P signoff.

I did some “research” for this discussion. The privileges of the “non builder owner” seem to largely depend on whether there is a “national regulator” annual signoff. Some have it (G-reg) and some don’t. This is at least logical… the logic being that the original builder should get more maintenance privileges simply because he is risking his own life.

But the privileges are hard to find out and those who know have good reasons to say little.

They do not want pseudo-homebuilts to be sold in large numbers and used like normal aircraft, they only want to enable amateurs to build their own

Yet, nothing stops “production building” going on covertly. Especially on the G-reg where the buyer doesn’t lose any privileges. But then the LAA screws anybody who bought an exported one, into flying back to the UK and pretending to be based there, for a few days each year.

But anybody could buy a kit and employ a builder. If I bought a homebuilt kit that’s what I would do. Much easier with two people, one of whom has already done it a dozen times. It’s a no-brainer.

In the US you can fake-build your own aircraft.

You can do that anywhere and it goes on everywhere.

It is massively in the kit manufacturer’s interest to let the customer build as little of it as possible, because most of the potential customers can’t even rivet 2 bits of sheet straight, and the mfg is going to get a load of grief over it, not to mention a lot more product liability. I am not going to describe the wiring I saw the other day in a brand new UK build…

So the “51%” is rigged to make it easy. If you took €80k off someone and then required them to cut the bits out of an 8×4ft sheet you would get zero takers. So you get a mostly pre-built plane, and you design the avionics layout and do the wiring. One I saw came as a fully built airframe. The RV comes are predrilled precut pieces which should come together correctly without a need for jigs. IMHO an RV requires a good builder (I flew in one which had massive holes, big enough for a finger) but some other types require little more than a soldering iron.

If one day I get the Lancair Evolution I will do the 2 weeks in the USA but it will be fully assisted

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

achimha wrote:

You can see that these loopholes do have problematic consequences. In the US you can fake-build your own aircraft. One reason the US are so much behind on developing new certification standards is that GA has already moved to the gray homebuild area for a large part.

Virtual problematic consequences maybe. Homebuilds will never “take over” for certified aircraft. The reason is homebuilts cannot be used commercially. If you think about it this is a tremendous restriction for anyone trying to make big money by producing aircraft. At least aircraft above a certain size, complexity and cost which is the only lucrative business in aviation. Also, why should an airplane that is used exclusively for private (non-commercial) flying be held to the same standard as an aircraft used to transport passengers? A private aircraft is used maybe 50 h each year, a commercial aircraft is used 500h each year. That is on average a factor 10 of reduced risk in the usage alone.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Achim, I sort of get it and agree with what you are saying. However the German system does lean towards typical blinkered thinking and borderline oddity which makes sense to no one but the rulemaker.

Factory built non CofA have to apply for permission for each entry to Germany – I get that and it fits with your argument. Homebuilders don’t have to apply for each entry, they are covered by ECAC for indefinite stays. On top of that other EU authorities will accept registration transfers and then Germany allows full access via ECAC homebuilds.

When I.contacted the OUV about my registration transfer I was simply told to provide it was built in Germany. Not by who, skill levels, inspector sign offs or anything…. just within Germany.

EDHS, Germany

italianjon wrote:

When I.contacted the OUV about my registration transfer I was simply told to provide it was built in Germany. Not by who, skill levels, inspector sign offs or anything…. just within Germany.

Yes because OUV are responsible for German homebuilt projects and the LAA are responsible for UK projects. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Each homebuilt has to be built according to the rules of an organization that has assumed oversight by power of the CAA and your craft was built under LAA rules which are different from OUV rules so OUV cannot take over that responsibility.

To me this makes perfect sense. You are in essence trying to operate a homebuilt like any other aircraft that is built, sold and operated. That is not supposed to be done. You have to comply with the LAA’s rules. There’s no free lunch.

LeSving wrote:

Homebuilds will never “take over” for certified aircraft. The reason is homebuilts cannot be used commercially.

There’s nothing commercial below a King Air anyway these days so you’re missing my point. It’s about the whole GA market between a microlight and a Meridian. This market is dead partly due to stupid certification regimes and in the US this caused an explosion of the RV etc. market. By being so slow evolving certification rules, the US have fuelled that unnecessary trend and made it virtually impossible for a company to design and certify an aircraft.

Last Edited by achimha at 20 Aug 16:57

Peter wrote:

You can do that anywhere and it goes on everywhere.

It is massively in the kit manufacturer’s interest to let the customer build as little of it as possible

You mix together lots of stuff here. The authorities have only one prime responsibility, that is to make sure the aircraft flying around are airworthy according to their own rules and regulations. Sometimes the authorities also mix it up, taking too much interest in certain aspects, but that’s the exceptions. For the authorities, the question of certification or not certification, is irrelevant. It’s of no interest other than making paperwork easier (or more complex ). Also, who has built the aircraft, is also uninteresting, as long as it is operated within the restrictions of how it was built.

There are no grey areas, not regarding airworthiness. Maintenance vise the regulations are equally clear in my opinion. You have to have built at least 51% to have acquired the competence to maintain it. This is only a number, and it can get fuzzy with several builders etc. Certainly someone who has built everything from scratch over several years has acquired more competence than another one who has “built” the aircraft in two weeks. But you see, this has no relevance to the basic airworthiness of the aircraft. One can argue that aircraft built within the confines of a factory under assistance by experts is on average more reliable and “safe” than an aircraft build from scratch.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

achimha wrote:

This market is dead partly due to stupid certification regimes and in the US this caused an explosion of the RV etc

Maybe, maybe not, I think there are more to it, price and stuff. But, my point is “so what ?” If the airplanes are good enough for the applicable authority, what is the fuzz about? The only problem with this is that some countries have rather draconian regimes regarding homebuilts (no IFR, no imports, special this, special that), Germany and UK in particular. I mean, that is a problem there, not anywhere else.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

From what I can tell, and I am still investigating this, only the 2-yearly Pitot/Static check which is required by the Dutch authorities must be done by a Dutch registered person.

italianjon, you were right and I was wrong, it’s a two-year-, not one-year-interval for pitot-static, Radio, xponder….

EDLE

LeSving wrote:

The only problem with this is that some countries have rather draconian regimes regarding homebuilts (no IFR, no imports, special this, special that), Germany and UK in particular. I mean, that is a problem there, not anywhere else.

Not even that in my opinion as long as they approve free entry for foreign ECAC homebuilts, just like e. g. Germany does. According to the informations I got from the german CAA (department entry permissions) they are rather working on further relaxations. Microlights also have a general entry permission in the AIP. But I agree, a few limitations remain.

Last Edited by europaxs at 20 Aug 19:19
EDLE
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