Timothy wrote:
I generally prefer the EASA regime.
I would also like to know why?
I cant think of a single aspect of EASA’s regime (where it is different from the FAA’s regime) that is better?
I also am not able to think about an EASA regulatory advantage. You just have to have a typical ATC exchange with the American controllers at Lakenheath to illustrate this. You call up, they answer with a squawk code and MATZ penetration approved, if they need your life history they presumably ask for it, but in several decades of transiting their area the service is concise, safe (plenty of traffic awareness input) and practical.
In the same vein, despite the USA having important GA communities (ie in the thousands) in areas hostile to GA (Alaska, Western mountainous regions, tornado alley, etc), they persist in having a superior GA safety record. If this is due to more practical, real life training, superior infrastructure, or regulatory philosophy is unclear.
There is a big “what has EASA done for us” thread here
But comparing EASA to FAA, I can’t really think of anything either where EASA does it better for Europe based owners than FAA does it for US based owners.
There are issues specific to European based ops where – predictably – EASA is easier than FAA, e.g. the already mentioned issues with medicals caused by lack of AME Special Issuance expertise here in Europe, or the difficulty of doing Field Approvals for a European based plane. Plus, for some, getting BFRs and IPCs done in Europe, never mind an initial FAA checkride… These factors do add up to make EASA reg more attractive today as an ab initio route, for most aircraft owners.
If you discuss maintenance or installation issues EASA v. FAA, the debates tend to descend into anarchy as soon as some avionics installers arrive, as in e.g. this one which contains some really disingenuous posts (but most readers won’t realise it).
Back on the topic, there are “regulatory winners” in all walks of life but the European GA scene has more of them than most, since basically everybody except the aircraft owner benefits from more / tighter regulation 
Well, until the active aircraft population shrinks to the point where the companies trying to make money out of them start to go bust…
