Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

EASA Experimental and VFR night

Hi. If there is possible to have EASA experimental plane allowed for VFR Night flying?
In some countries (for eg. Poland, Slovakia) ultralights are allowed to make it, how about much better equipped experimentals?

I couldn’t find any registered and allowed plane in internet but there is any law against it?

http://www.Bornholm.Aero
EKRN, Denmark

Przemek wrote:

Hi. If there is possible to have EASA experimental plane allowed for VFR Night flying?
In some countries (for eg. Poland, Slovakia) ultralights are allowed to make it, how about much better equipped experimentals?

I couldn’t find any registered and allowed plane in internet but there is any law against it?

I don’t think there is such a thing as an “EASA experimental plane”. Experimental aircraft are regulated by national authorities, so rules may differ depending on your country. In some countries night VFR is certainly possible as even IFR is allowed.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

The Q is whether any homebuilts in Europe can fly VFR at night.

It is possible in the UK, where there is a (very slow moving) programme for approving certain types of aircraft to IFR. The approval is not geographically limited but only some countries outside the UK allow homebuilt IFR e.g. France does, Germany doesn’t.

So the answer is likely to be dependent on lots of things including who owns the airspace.

You can get some idea by setting up some suitable ICAO categories on FR24 and seeing if anything pops up over some weeks or months – a bit like this. It is far from exhaustive (FR24 doesn’t show all VFR codes, shows only Mode S, and doesn’t pick up low flying traffic) but a total absence of data is likely to be indicative.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I couldn’t find any registered and allowed plane in internet but there is any law against it?

There are no EASA experimental as in homebuilt experimental. They are all Annex II and therefore under national regulations. FR24 doesn’t work, neither Norway or Sweden has a requirement for mode S in experimental planes, and probably never will (probably will at some time though , but not until MLAT or WLAT or whatever the name is, has become standard throughout instead of radar, if it ever becomes a standard).

The easiest way to find out for one particular country is to contact the appropriate organisation. EAA for Norway and Sweden, something else elsewhere. I only know in detail for Norway. Here it is exclusively equipment based. Equipment/instruments for NVFR can be installed by the builder. For IFR, the equipment/avionics (the installation) must be signed off by a certified shop, and the gadgets themselves must be certified.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Equipment carriage in Europe is an airspace requirement so an Annex 2 has to carry the same mandated stuff as a CofA type, so if particular flying requires Mode S (and it is hard to do distances in N Europe without Mode S) then FR24 is likely to show it. In this respect FR24 is only a research tool, to see if anybody is likely doing that sort of flying.

Is night VFR monitored in any way? VFR, especially VFR OCAS, is pretty well unregulated in Europe, you can usually do it non-radio and non-TXP, so is anybody going to notice if a primary radar target is potentially doing “night VFR” illegally? Any primary target after official sunset plus 30 mins is obviously night VFR but you cannot tell the type, and the vast majority of CofA types can do it legally.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

and it is hard to do distances in N Europe without Mode S

Not the long distances, short hops on the continent perhaps Besides, in some airspaces at sea, ADS-B is mandatory, so you won’t in principle get as far as you maybe would like even, with Mode S. Anyway, it seems the principle everywhere is that a certain amount of equipment/instruments must be installed in addition to avionics according to airspace requirements. The thing is that the minimum equipment/instruments may be different from country to country as well as be different from the corresponding EASA regulations about the same things. A local aviation authority may also set a minimum of avionics standard irrelevant of airspace. The only way to get info about it is to contact the local organisation or the aviation authority directly. Looking at FR24 will not give you any information you can use.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

I was merely saying that FR24 reveals much of Mode S traffic and can thus reveal current practices within certain sectors of airspace users.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I’m looking for something against in my papers. In POH made for my aircraft is standing that aircraft is allowed for VFR flights only. There is nothing about day limitation so looks that its not forbidden. Abionics annual is day/night and nowhere is standing that night is forbiden….

http://www.Bornholm.Aero
EKRN, Denmark

What does your Permit say on it?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
9 Posts
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top