Peter, my plane has been based during the last 5 years in Ukraine, Belgium, Switzerland and back in Ukraine. All these countries are allowing long term parking of N-registered plane. Some limitations in terms of operations e.g. Belgium is only 30days/year, Germany is 180days/year. But otherwise, no issues.
The 180 day German bit is here and here.
Those are very useful data points, Ploucandco. However, there is a big difference between what is legal and what is doable without trouble. I know a guy with an N-reg exp which has been very overtly flying IFR all over Europe from a country which does not allow it at all (IIRC – I am not going to post the details) yet it has obviously “worked”. The time one might find out either way would be if there was an incident. Even a breach of a parking limit would void a ground risks policy e.g. hangar damage. But if you have enough money for insurance to not matter, that’s ok. And quite a lot of people – not necessarily wealthy ones – are in that position; if you can afford to replace the plane, and nobody else is in your hangar OR you have few assets, then ground risks are not an issue.
All the time you are moving about, nothing is likely to happen. Same as income tax really 
I should have said that Ploucandco’s list should be every country in the world, because I have never heard of any country than absolutely bans overflight or landing in them. Indeed a lot of the long distance record breaking flights were done in “homebuilt” types. The UK CAA issued an IFR permit for these flights, with, I am told, an “understanding” that IFR is not done in Eurocontrol airspace 
It is the permits you have to get, and some countries prohibit long term parking of “foreign reg” ones.
The inability to do IFR in France is going to put a real damper on the UK LAA IFR programme. I asked about that previously but the references (for IFR) are hard to find. Flying IFR in the UK is not worth a huge amount, for the typical mission profile, due to most flights being easily done VFR in Class G and you can enter IMC in practice without anybody knowing
Peter wrote:
The inability to do IFR in France
Let’s stick to the facts. The inability was for one single particular N-reg Europa with whatever avionics and other instruments that were installed at that time, and with presumably a non-certified Rotax 912/914. To my knowledge, in France you must have a certified engine to fly IFR (or approved or something?), but some of the French people here may clarify this.
It would be so much more less confusing for everyone if you stopped making a big mess out of this, deliberately mixing apples and oranges, seeing the devil in every sentence. This isn’t rocket science, it’s straight forward actually, only it’s not ICAO.
The inability was for one single particular N-reg Europa with whatever avionics and other instruments that were installed at that time, and with presumably a non-certified Rotax 912/914. To my knowledge, in France you must have a certified engine to fly IFR (or approved or something?), but some of the French people here may clarify this.
It would be interesting to find out whether the French ban on IFR in non certified aircraft applies to different groups differently e.g. F-reg, non-F-reg ECAC, non-ECAC. I doubt it does but it would be useful to know because it would have a big effect on G-reg LAA types.
The info here suggests that somebody got IFR certification in an F-reg, which would not make sense if France banned it for its airspace.
deliberately mixing apples and oranges, seeing the devil in every sentence
Negative… I am merely pointing out a certain level of disingenuity
LeSving wrote:
It would be so much more less confusing for everyone if you stopped making a big mess out of this, deliberately mixing apples and oranges, seeing the devil in every sentence.
It may not be rocket science but it is not very obvious either, that is why many people shy away from experimental or permit airplanes as it is very hard for someone considering an airplane like that figuring out what exactly he can do with this plane, what permits he needs and which country he may overfly or not, let alone fly IFR or night VFR and all that. IMHO unless there is a change in this policy, this makes this kind of operation in Europe simply not worth the hassle, particularly since there has been and will be no certainty in how individual countries interpret their laws from a day to day basis. That is why EASA has been a blessing in recent years because there is ONE rulework for ALL of Europe which on top also more or less guarantees you can fly an EASA certified airplane anywhere in the civilized world without anyone questioning it’s airworthiness or denying overflight and landing for certification reason. In homebuilts you don’t even know for sure if you can fly into quite a few European countries without hassle and if the permits are going to be re-issued the following year.
I fully understand why in the US this all is a non-issue and therefore uncertified aviation has taken over naturally from certified: Unless you want to fly across the borders you got a country to fly in which is so big that it simply does not matter. On top of that, not many countries in the neighbourhood of the US have the balls to actually play stupid with them either.
As long as in Europe every country can at will decide what you can do with your property and there is no pan-european organisation which can tell certain hasslers to stop it and get out of the way, that is a problem as much as you negate it.
This discussion is absolutely fruitless because the two camps are unable to provide any credible references to corroborate their arguments. So all we know is that people are in disagreement wrt facts.
Peter wrote:
The info here suggests that somebody got IFR certification in an F-reg, which would not make sense if France banned it for its airspace.
I am 100% sure they got some regulations about this in France. Speculating this or that doesn’t help anything, someone from France explaining them would. Regulations doesn’t have to make sense to any other but the hyper-bureaucratic minds of the ones making them. EASA is as good an example of this as anything.
Peter wrote:
I am merely pointing out a certain level of disingenuity
And I am merely pointing out a certain level of FUD. I guess that should make us even
Mooney_Driver wrote:
That is why EASA has been a blessing
You actually believe that? ICAO sets the “standard”, not EASA. If anything, this shows that despite anything EASA does, ICAO rules. It also shows that EU is worth nothing when it comes to agreeing in the simplest matters. In this matter they don’t even need to agree, only accept each others minute differences and the validity of a “permit” or C of A made by each country’s aviation authority. ECAC is the one who has made this possible, not EASA, not EU. EASA fronts a certified regime exclusively. A regime where a typical modern GA aircraft (a Cirrus) costs €1M, and therefore is nothing but a tiny niche The whole recreational GA industry has since long moved to non-certified, microlights and homebuilts, in which EASA has no jurisdiction whatsoever. The industry wouldn’t have moved in that direction if there was no demand.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
that is why many people shy away from experimental or permit airplanes as it is very hard for someone considering an airplane like that figuring out what exactly he can do with this plane, what permits he needs and which country he may overfly or not, let alone fly IFR or night VFR and all that
What exactly is the problem? I just don’t get it. If you don’t wan’t to get involved with non-certified aircraft, for whatever reason, then don’t. Problem solved. Let us who actually are involved with this deal with our own “problems”.
Aviathor wrote:
This discussion is absolutely fruitless because the two camps are unable to provide any credible references to corroborate their arguments. So all we know is that people are in disagreement wrt facts.
Not at all. This isn’t a discussion, merely an exchange of opinions. What we have is a small group of single minded people with one single “mission”. The “mission” is to fly around Europe IFR. They want to get from A to B as efficient as possible, where A and B are two arbitrary places in Europe. Why it is so important to get from A to B as efficient as possible a half a dozen times per year or less, and when both A and B could be purely random picks on the map, beats me. But, it’s a “mission profile” all right, that fact cannot be denied.
The “group” is of the opinion that a homebuilt aircraft cannot satisfactory serve that “mission profile”, and therefore all homebuilt aircraft are useless. What can I say, everyone are entitled to their own opinion
So it really isn’t a discussion about homebuilt aircraft at all, but merely some sort of defense, or touting or whatever of the “mission profile” and it’s “all reaching importance” for European recreational aviation.
This discussion is absolutely fruitless because the two camps are unable to provide any credible references to corroborate their arguments. So all we know is that people are in disagreement wrt facts.
The “facts” depend on whether one actually reads some of the posts, ignores the swipes at the mod, and spots the amount of goalpost moving. Most of this has been done before, with docs such as this posted over and over again in threads like this one which give any interested party enough “research material”.
Everyone agrees about some of the advantages. IMHO the biggest limiting factor on homebuilt take-up is the need for permits and the other restrictions. Whether these matter to a particular individual depends on the individual and their mission profile. But simply denying the issue exists (or the extent of it) is not doing anybody any service. With well over 1000 regular readers daily, it merely results in a lot of people spending say 100k on a plane which doesn’t do what they expected, and posting wrong or incomplete information isn’t what EuroGA is about!
