Using your own aircraft for training

By9468840 wrote:

I want to do NVFR training in my PA28 Arrow 200.
Does anyone have any experience in using own aircraft in EASA land for training? As far as I read, it needs to be registered to an ATO. But does that mean the aircraft is suddenly subject to commerical operations regulations in regards to engine overhaul etc.?

There are two questions here:

1) Does the aircraft need to be “registred”.
If you are training at an ATO, yes. Or to be precise, it has to be included in the ATO approval. If you are training at a DTO, no. Only the type of aircraft need to be “registered” in the case of a DTO. So if the DTO is already giving training on a PA28R-200, then no “registration” is needed. ( * ) Otherwise the DTO needs to update its declaration.

2) Is the aircraft subject to commercial maintenance regs.
If the ATO or DTO is a commercial operation, yes. If it is not (e.g. in a non-profit aeroclub), then no. The fact that the aircraft is used for training doesn’t matter — the only thing that matters is if the operation is commercial,.

( * ) the Swedish CAA demands that a DTO declares all individual aircraft they use. They agree that part-DTO doesn’t require that, but they say there are other regulations that gives them the right to demand that info and that they have chosen to apply it to DTOs. Other national authorities may do the same.

In your case as you maintain privately you could find a „club“ (in other words non profit ATO) for the nvfr and add your plane.

For reference and nice to know:
going for the IR you can use your own plane for 30 of the 40 required hours of instruction completely outside any ATO.

Thanks to everyones advice on this forum, I am just now receiving a DA42-VI, and working on an CB-IR ME rating.

For the practical flying for CB-IR, at the minimum the last 10 hours need to be flown at an ATO. Ideally, I would find an ATO on mainland central/Northern Europe that would allow me to complete my CB-IR ME training using my own aircraft. I have understood that it takes some time to register the aircraft under the ATO and this is not something they are necessarily excited about doing but it is possible. But it would of course be better for me to get as familiar as possible on the aircraft I will actually fly.

It has been a little challenging finding the right fit, since the ATO has to specifically offer CB-IR training (not the full ATPL IR training), I am going straight to CB IR ME (without doing single engine), the ATO would hopefully be willing to let me use my aircraft. And they have to have time to fit in my hours in a reasonable amount of time (since I will be traveling to this ATO).

My aircraft is insured for flight training. Anyone been through this before and found an ATO that will allow people to use their own aircraft?

In order to use your aircraft for flight training, the ATO should have it included in the operation specification, which means they shall submit an application to that effect to the national CAA, possibly pay a fee, and wait for the CAA to issue a new specification. I heard of a couple instances where this happened, but you should either be in very friendly relations with the ATO management, or the ATO should actually need your aircraft and you should be willing to let them train others in it as well, which is a potential source of income for you, yet limits its availability.
An alternative approach would be to forgo training on your own type but find an ATO with a relatively inexpensive ME aircraft, which would be either a Tecnam P2006T or some old aircraft that is flying its last hours before being decommissioned.

sedatedokc wrote:

Anyone been through this before and found an ATO that will allow people to use their own aircraft?

I did IR on own aircraft in 2014. It was a DA40 and we flew about 50 hours in a month. My advice would be to find an instructor that wants to fly with you. An old sleepy one is best He will know a good examiner too. He should find the ATO I guess. ATO doesn’t have to be physically close to you or the instructor. I don’t think it is a lot of work to get your plane in an ATO. It’s just lost revenue for them. Plane needs to be in CAMO AFAIR.

Legally the plane doesn’t need to be in a CAO/CAMO anymore. In practice, many ATOs don’t know this and prefer to do things like back in 1996 or whenever ;)

GM1ML.A.201(e) Responsibilities
COMMERCIAL ATO/DTO
According to industry practice, the following are examples of aircraft not considered to be operated by a commercial ATO or a commercial DTO:
(a) Aircraft operated by an organisation holding an ATO certificate or a DTO declaration, created with the aim of promoting aerial sport or leisure aviation, on the conditions that:
(1) the aircraft is operated by the organisation on the basis of ownership or dry lease;
(2) the ATO/DTO is a non-profit organisation; and
(3) whenever non-members of the organisation are involved, such flights represent only a marginal activity of the organisation.
(b) Aircraft operated under Part-NCO by its owner together with an ATO or a DTO flight instructor for the purpose of training, when the contract between the owner and the training organisation and the procedures of the training organisation allow it. The continuing airworthiness of such aircraft remains under the responsibility of the owner, or of the CAMO or CAO contracted by the owner, if the owner has elected to contract a CAMO or CAO in accordance with ML.A.201(f).
(c) Aircraft used for very limited training flights due to the specific configuration of the aircraft and limited need for such flights.

@loco ‘s advice is good. Find any instructor who can fly with you and line up an ATO.

Adding an airplane to the ATO fleet for training purposes isn’t a big deal, especially if similar types are already present. It get added to an Annex of the OM and that’s it.

If the ATO already has the same type (I guess that means DA42 with similar engine and avionics) in its training manual, then adding the aircraft to the fleet is little work and quickly done. That’s how I passed my SET class rating.

If not, they have to establish a training manual for that type, and get it approved by their national CAA; that’s both more work for them, and more delay from the CAA.

I would definitely try to find an ATO that is in the former category. I know that EATIS in Strasbourg LFST does trainings in DA42s, but there are certainly others in Europe. (I did my PBN course at EATIS, on a DA42 sim, when the ATO where I did my “final 10h” for my CB-IR didn’t have an approved PBN training yet…)

I did my UK IR training in my N-reg TB20, in 2011.

I was able to find a local ATO which took it on. The paperwork is reportedly only an hour or so, but most ATOs don’t like it because it disturbs their “sausage machine flow”. Today I would not be able to do it without flying a long way and staying in a hotel.

Two identical threads merged.

Is the La Rochelle area too far for you? If not I think there is still an ATO there who would be happy to do the 10hrs in your own aircraft as I believe they do not own aircraft, especially a twin.