CofA aircraft owners - what would it take to move you to a non-CofA type?

Why not?

Peter, when I once made a rough landing, breaking the prop and nose gear leg, total cost was some 1000 € for spare parts plus a road trip of twice 1300 kms or so. Plus a good deal of beer to a couple of fellows. What would the cost be on your plane?

Flying some 60 hours per annum, my recurring maintenance cost is twice 3 litres of oil, once or twice an oil filter, and 8 automotive grade spark plugs. Total must be some 200 €, liberally estimated. How much is yours?

Jan, I wasn’t commenting on the European class system and its impact on aircraft maintenance preferences. I was simply saying that buyers in world market for GA aircraft, the market that creates the choices worldwide, are not averse to being involved with the maintenance of their own planes.

In the USA, there was, and remains though in decline, a class of citizens well enough to do to afford their own PA28 or C172 or AA5.

The US aircraft market is actually going in the opposite direction: owning a certified plane is getting cheaper as E-AB takes over the GA market, particularly if you don’t need all weather capability and can largely use the avionics that come in the plane. That’s the reason I’ve stuck with certified aircraft: the planes were less expensive and by making contacts with the right people, maintenance under FAA regs is manageable without a lot of extra fuss. If I were doing a lot of avionics modifications, there would be more advantage to E-AB, but like you (Jan) I fly VFR.

Both my planes are in respectable condition and the cost for both of them combined was $57K USD. I chose carefully to buy planes with the most robust and well ‘supported’ engines. Fuel is getting pricier but my fuel cost is perhaps $3500/year for 100 hrs averaged over both planes, not really a rich man’s budget. Which is good, because I prefer to save my money and retire some day

My cheaper certified plane cost $22K to buy but is a nice example, having won best of show at a type specific fly-in shortly before I bought it, compared with about 60 others on hand that day. It gets maintained with used, reconditioned parts and a few new ones. I think you’d consider the cost very low, and substantially lower than it would cost to buy and maintain a new microlight.

And no, the issue is not in availability of working space, or at least not everywhere in Europe (though it might well be in the UK); the main issue is over regulation. You have yourself described several jobs you did on your planes that one is not allowed to perform on a European registered CofA craft.

The solution to that is not hard to see: N-registration, even if you still need EASA pilot qualifications, as done by a number of people posting here.

The N-reg has its value to the second class I mentioned: hard working, well-to-do, mostly self employed. Which we see here indeed. It is of little relevance to the upper class, or all of those in Europe would fly on the M-register; and those who rent club planes have little option. Those very few private owners of C172-PA28-… class could consider it, but it would not be worth the hassle generally, as they mostly fly very very little. One chap I know bought a local C172 and re-registered it to the USA because he has the papers (“A&C”?) to do his own maintenance – confirming Peter’s point. But he is an exception – in more than one sense…

I must agree though, that the market for private planes, and especially for new private planes, is determined by what happens in the USA: it is the largest market, and likely to remain so for a good while yet. Here in Europe, we try to make do like we can – there’s a fair deal of pragmatism required here, to get as much flying from one’s budget as can be squeezed out. GA-wise, we are poorer than the US, with our higher cost for just about every aspect, and thus more creative – poverty has always been a good incentive to imagination.

A&C?

A million years ago it was ‘A&E’ (Airframe and Engine Mechanic) but now it’s ‘A&P’ (Airframe and Powerplant)… Not to worry! On my visit to Germany in April I met an FAA A&P who has more experience with my aircraft type than any A&P in the USA. You never know, I might need that some day, some how.

Ah, “A&P” it was indeed, thanks. While we are on acronyms (I’ll never be at ease with them): what did you mean by “E-AB” ?

E-AB = Experimental Amateur Built Link

Ciao

Silvaire,

I reckon there is one fundamental difference between the US and Europe in terms of motivation why one would go non-certified via certified.

In the US it has to do with the technical and type specific advantages of non certified planes for the mission requirement you have. If you want a high performance you choose a Lancair 5P or if you want to fly for fun you take a kit plane for that purpose. High performance travel in a 5P is not an issue for private operators as they can fly IFR and have all the US to fly in.

In Europe, the motivation is to escape the stringent and senseless EASA crusade against normal GA, which has risen the cost of certified planes into unreachable heights for most people. That is why some people take the alternate route via non certified mostly ULs or VLA’s for day time fun flying or other experimentals for such airplanes which are not otherwise certifyable under EASA.

The advantage is that you can do your own maintenance, can build in non certified instruments such as Dynon and others and basically can do a lot of stuff you can’t do under EASA, the disadvantage is that you are restricted to day VFR and non IFR and you need overflight permits for just about everywhere.

Hangar space is a very expensive and very reglemented comodity here, which is hard to get and if so very expensive. Most airfields which have hangars are usually privately owned by clubs or associations which will impose strict rules on what you can do and what not with your plane. Many even forbid maintenance in their hangar and make you use the local maintenance company or else you can’t fly or hangar from this airfield.

So the situations are not comparable in any way. The differences in philosophy and practice between the US and Europe of today in avtion terms are about as pronounced than those between the US and the USSR during the cold war. That is why there are quite a few people I know who do not fly in Europe anymore but either emigrate if they are able to or fly only in the US when they are on vaccation there.

European GA has been regarded by politicians as a nuissance, privilege of certain classes they abhor and therefore something best abolished. And that shows.

Add to that, that a lot of ATC officials around here see airspace as a comodity to be traded and therefore sees GA as again a nuissance they’d rather not deal with.

While EASA now is trying to mend some of the things they have damaged, it remains to be seen how they will fare. But frankly, the concept of experimentals doing any useful work in Europe is so much beyond anything the powers that are can fathom that it will only happen if there is a very fundamental change in policy.

Let’s not forget that experimental aircraft is about building your own aircraft for educational and recreational purposes. 51 % rule and things. The purpose is not to get a high performance airplane to fly IFR in. That is only one of the benefits (if IFR is your thing and you don’t live in the UK or Germany that is). EASA has nothing to do with this particular thing.

European GA has been regarded by politicians as a nuissance, privilege of certain classes they abhor and therefore something best abolished. And that shows.

True some places I guess, but lots of patches in Europe are virtually classless societies, well unless bureaucrats are counted as a class It is not as black as you describe. There certainly are black spots, but Europe is a large continent with very diverse traditions and cultures. The development of high performance ultralights is a European thing, and is really the only new thing that has happened in light aviation during the last 50 years besides kit development in the US.