Silvaire wrote:
Nothing related to maintenance records can be checked in a ramp check, because maintenance records aren’t carried on the plane.
But what if you get ramp checked at your home base?
A ramp check is by definition carried out in a public place, and the maintenance logbooks aren’t stored in public. If the ramp check identifies some potential visual discrepancy, like for instance a field approved one-off modification, I could imagine an owner volunteering his maintenance logbooks to clarify, if they were nearby. I think more likely it wouldn’t come up unless that modification was part of a premeditated FAA agenda for the inspection. In that case, the inspector could check the FAA record for an approved modification later on.
My maintenance logbooks are BTW kept at home.
The principle of (what I think they call) natural justice means that if you get inspected and don’t have the papers on you, you get given a ticket which you bring to the enforcing authority within X days, with the required papers.
That’s what happens if you get caught speeding in the UK, whose legal framework works generally really well. Obviously it won’t work on a driver visiting from a foreign country, so he would simply escape the fine. Someone told me recently the police force the fixed penalty option in such a case, as a pragmatic solution, and if you can’t pay you have a big problem… This is fairly new; foreign drivers used to escape all the fines unless the offence was arrestable (drinking and above). @Timothy might know; he is or used to be a magistrate.
I don’t think this privilege works in aviation where they know you will have left the country shortly and won’t come back for a year. For a start there isn’t a fixed penalty option, payable on the ramp, on any aviation crime I know of.
I have heard of all kinds of dodgy aggressive stuff done without any legal basis at airports but have never heard of somebody being required to produce records which are not required to be carried. If it happened, based on what I have heard over time, I reckon they would get you to get somebody back home to send them photos of your paperwork. The same method has been used when arranging emergency (AOG) work in another country; your CAMO has to authorise it remotely. Obviously that’s bad if you are stuck abroad for a few days…
What has been reported is French police having a briefing pack detailing the pilot’s paperwork requirements e.g. a pic of an FAA plastic card showing where “INSTRUMENT PILOT” should be if he arrived IFR. And 30 day VOR checks. But all this stuff should be with the pilot, or in the journey log, respectively.
Import VAT is something else but we have done that on numerous other threads.
For the VOR check, what Silvaire said about the “how did you get here” check is particularly true. You only need to check the VOR if you use it for navigation. So they would have to prove to you that you flew an approach that needs the VOR tuned, or that the VOR was part of your contingency plan in case of GPS failure (now detailed in Part NCO). But I’m sure that if it is on their checklist, they don’t care about the interpretation of the FAA, becos sis is Frahns. 
AlexG wrote:
But what if you get ramp checked at your home base?
In France, ramp check are conducted by “Gendarme”. The truth is that they just run their “ramp check” checklist and that’s it. They know very little about avionics and maintenance. It’s not their buisiness.
So, unless you are involved in a serious incident / accident, where a real investigation is being conducted by the BEA, nobody will ask you about the two year IFR radio check.
However, Gendarme might be looking for the placard stating that the aircraft (F-reg) is capable of flying IFR. Although this not requirement per Part-NCO, it’s requirement in the " arrêté de 91 ".
And as of today, I’m not aware that this national regulation was repealed.
In fact, the story about “ramp checks” is very overdone here in Europe, particularly in pilot forums. First of all, they are rare (I got rampchecked once in 16 years of flying, and that one I provoked myself).
And when they happen, they seem to be very superficial: license and medical, plus sometimes, the basic aircraft documents.
The only occasions where they really seem to go into detail, are either a) after the crash (in some cases) or b) during pre-announced random, full-bore inspections (called “ACAM inspections” in Germany, possibly with similar names in other countries). But these take place “by appointment” and when the aircraft is “at home”. And even these won’t hit you if you are N-reg…
boscomantico wrote:
And when they happen, they seem to be very superficial: license and medical, plus sometimes, the basic aircraft documents.
I had the same experience with the only ramp check I had in France (2009 or 2010).
In France, the Gendarme have to fill some sort of form and that takes a bit time. They are only asking for the usual stuff.
Rwy20 wrote:
What was the question again? Ask whom?
OSAC. And what you asked here. If the check is still necessary. If there is still a paper proving it. And follow ups, I basically outlined it in the second paragraph. The question was how are you supposed to know if a plane can be flown IAW IFR. If they reply that proof has to be carried, obvious response is pointing out that it’s not among the documents that have to be carried (AFAIK). If they reply you’ll know it from the proof, you can ask them how is one (e.g. that foreigner from another EASA MS) supposed to know about this (that he has to check some piece of paper he doesn’t have to carry and might have never heard about).
Guillaume wrote:
However, Gendarme might be looking for the placard stating that the aircraft (F-reg) is capable of flying IFR. Although this not requirement per Part-NCO, it’s requirement in the " arrêté de 91 ".
And as of today, I’m not aware that this national regulation was repealed.
It doesn’t have to be. Annex 2 aircraft should be exempt from EU ops regulations (and maintenance as well). Meaning national law applies. There is so much aviation related EU law now that it’s a question how much space is left for national law. It sure has potential for being dog’s breakfast.
Talking of the VOR 30 day check… Is that somewhere in the EU regulation? I only flew IFR in the USA and there we had lots of VOTs and VOR checkpoints, and as with everything it’s defined in the FARs. How does the pilot check his CDI in Europe? Or is it not her/his responsibility?
Thanks for this thread by the way, I learned a lot from it. :-)
AFAIK there are no VOR check facilities in the European countries I have been to. But there are other ways of doing a VOR check as laid out by 14CFR 91.171, for example comparing two VORs which should be within 4 degrees of one another.
It is surprising that there is no provision in FAR 91.171 for checking a VOR bearing against a GPS bearing…
