Airborne_Again wrote:
You mean the ZÜP is motivated by national security!?
Yeah…the idea for it came up after 9/11. It is allegedly to prevent people with extremist/terrorist backgrounds to become pilots and use their planes as a weapon. Which has never happened with GA planes in Germany, but never mind that…
Yep, the ZÜP is national, in conflict with EU law (there is a procedure in , slow, progress against Germany for it) and it has been tightened this spring.
While a GA plane has never been used for something terrorist-act-like (apart from atrocious landings bordering on manslaughter for the pax ;-) )
Unlike large trucks – driven with a licence that does not require any particular background check….
Playing on irrational fears of public and pursued by clueless politicians.
MedEwok wrote:
Yeah…the idea for it came up after 9/11. It is allegedly to prevent people with extremist/terrorist backgrounds to become pilots and use their planes as a weapon. Which has never happened with GA planes in Germany, but never mind that…
Even in the US, you only need TSA background check and approval for licence & rating issue nothing about TSA for “continued” exercise of the rating? I am sure you don’t need to renew TSA checks to fly on FAA PPL+IR, so why one need recurrent German ZUP to fly every 1 year? or 5 year? or 10 year?
In any case NAA will do background checks by default on their pilots before printing any papers, AFAIK this is the case for 3rd world country NAAs 
If NAA have a concern with someone, I am sure they have all the instrument to suspend their licence rather than pilots putting a case to maintain it !
I guess the general consensus for pilots is that they are assumed to be out of theirs minds by default, well we are doing a high risk hobby after all , on a similar tone someone decided to “criminalise UK CAS busts by default*” (especially the pieces of airspace where you can’t get decent radar services to cross them legally & safely but radar tracks are easily available for criminal prosecution 
) and then it is for the pilots to come up with their own non-criminal case (aka 10k£ lawyer stuff) to plead non-guilty, I will let you imagine where this coming and going…
*Lot of UK GA pilots agree on that “just culture” although the majority of that lot tend to have sub-standard flying & navigation skills
Ibra wrote:
Even in the US, you only need TSA background check and approval for licence & rating issue nothing about TSA for “continued” exercise of the rating? I am sure you don’t need to renew TSA checks to fly on FAA PPL+IR, so why one need recurrent German ZUP to fly every 1 year? or 5 year? or 10 year?
Because German authorities need your explicit consent to exchange that kind of information about you (if you are not under a formal criminal investigation). What the DHS does in the US – checking people by bringing together information from different sources w/o involvement of a DA and putting them on no fly lists – would be against the German constitution.
Therefore similar checks are done also in the US – they just don’t tell you until they have a problem with you.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Because German authorities need your explicit consent to exchange that kind of information about you (if you are not under a formal criminal investigation).
Ok got it, I did not look at it from that angle, just like medical info for FAA61.75 on German PPLs I am sure NAA can get pilot consent & signature to do whatever checks on their side including access to criminal records or private data…
172driver wrote:
(FAA fitness of character requirement)
How so ?
If you ever want to get a new rating, you have to run it past the TSA first. You will also be denied a medical for a number of things that are to do with your character, not your medical fitness. If you have a felony your medical can be deferred.
How likely is that, in reality, for any normal (non criminal) person?
Thousands of Europeans went to the US for flight training, got TSA checked, got fingerprinted, etc, but I’ve never heard of anyone having problems.
I got this due to a stupid flying school at Phoenix but that’s something else.
alioth wrote:
If you ever want to get a new rating, you have to run it past the TSA first.
Only if you’re not a US citizen.
All applicants are vetted by the TSA according to AC 61-141, at least for the initial issue of the student pilot cert. https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_61-141.pdf
In any case, as I mentioned, you can be denied a medical for certain non-medical reasons (e.g. having a felony on your record).
I have just received this from my MP where they suggest that we have rights to appeal any CAA decision to our County Court. For those more adept at reading legal speech any comments would be most welcome.
caa publication CAP 1048 local copy
Just to add. The document refers to decisions made by CAA BOARD MEMBERS and I wonder why that is very specific, also it is a very recent publication ( July 2020) so has someone already challenged the original document?
