C210_Flyer wrote:
Kinda ends the debate.
Not exactly. There is nothing special about this, it’s more or less the same wordings that are used for foreign experimental aircraft and for microlights within Europe, yet Germany, UK and the Netherlands (and Belgium) have their special twists for no apparent reason than to make life harder for pilots. It’s hardly relevant at all for long term operation of a foreign aircraft with a foreign license. If the regulations say nothing else about long term operations, then it is OK.
My point is that the only slightly valid reason for EASA to “ban N-regs” is if the FAA also “ban” EASA-regs in the same way. This is “valid” as a means to harmonize the regulations. What EASA is doing is making dis-harmony, and for no good reason.
It’s also interesting for Norway. The Norwegian CAA does indeed “ban” N-regs, and they do this because, according to them, no mutual agreement exists between Norway and the US about operations of aircraft from either country, as required by Norwegian law. So, if the above ref is the only legal documents governing this in the US, then no mutual agreement is needed. The agreement is already implicit in the US regulations (from the US side of things). Thus, the Norwegian CAA has no valid argument for how they practice this.
The Norwegian CAA does indeed “ban” N-regs, and they do this because, according to them, no mutual agreement exists between Norway and the US about operations of aircraft from either country, as required by Norwegian law. So, if the above ref is the only legal documents governing this in the US, then no mutual agreement is needed. The agreement is already implicit in the US regulations (from the US side of things). Thus, the Norwegian CAA has no valid argument for how they practice this.
No surprise to me!
Norway and Denmark are known (to me) for having regs on this, but I have never seen their actual wording.
Can you post a translation of the Norwegian regulation, LeSving?
I don’t think there is a way to draft such a reg tightly because, obviously, having an N-reg sitting for years in a hangar in Norway cannot be illegal. So it must be framed in terms of how long it is parked in Norway (or Denmark) together with how often it flies in Norwegian (or Danish) airspace. The two aspects have to be present otherwise frequent overflight (no landing) would also be banned.
For the purposes of this Regulation:
(h) ‘operator’ shall mean any legal or natural person, or company operating or proposing to operate one or more aircraft;
This definition always reminds me of the joke about the balloon pilot who shouts down to the surface “Where am I?”. To which the accountant passing by shouts back: “You’re in a balloon”. Which is perfectly accurate and completely useless.
The really obvious point is WHO wrote that regulation with a straight face? Options?
One UK barrister told me that EU law generally is rubbish, in the poor way it is drafted. The process used is sloppy. If a law is drafted in the UK, it is done by people who do it for a living and who know how people will try to get around it. So we end up with relatively few loopholes or ambiguities. Whereas e.g. EASA FCL is full of grey areas.
You needed a barrister to tell you that?!
Martin wrote:
My impression is that this topic is about how derogations work.
EASA and the Commission are going cold on “derogations”. I don’t know if this has made it to the comitology register but I doubt I’ll go to jail for sharing the first three paragraphs that demonstrate that the Commission does actually learn from experience.
INFORMATION NOTE – APPLICATION OF CERTAIN EU SAFETY AVIATION REGULATIONS
1. Some of Commission implementing regulations in the field of air safety allow Member States to defer, if they so wish, the application of the rules contained therein for a specified period of time after the date of their entry into force, i.e. to opt-out, as the technical standards require time to be rolled out, especially when they introduce novelties. Measures to ensure a smooth transition during the period of opt-out are advisable and their introduction by Member States is discretionary .
2. This creates a situation where it is not clear who does what and if everybody does it the same way. The uncertainty is further aggravated by the frequency of legal amendments and by the fact that also those amendments are set to apply as from a range of specific dates. On the other hand, the system of opt-outs raises legal concerns and uncertainty. It dilutes the harmonised legal environment that a Regulation seeks to achieve. One could argue that it may lead to discrimination. If we apply the same logic as that of Article 27 of the Treaty , any exclusion from the EU rules “… must be of a temporary nature and must cause the least possible disturbance to the functioning of the internal market”. It is therefore imperative that the use of opt-outs is restricted to duly justified cases, where it is absolutely necessary, and that a predictable and transparent system is employed, instead.
3. There are two options to achieve legal clarity and harmonised implementation of the common requirements throughout the Union. These two options would require a change in the way the entry into force and application provisions of the existing and future regulations are worded. The first option involves an immediate entry into force together with setting of a fixed future date of application and a number of transitional measures to be duly implemented by all Member States in that interim period. The second option includes an immediate application of the act with its entry into force, followed by implementation of specified transitional measures in all Member States. Thus, instead of national implementation plans, the transition tasks such as grandfathering, conversion, grace periods etc. are internalised i.e. included in the EU regulation.
…
DG MOVE
Brussels, 17-18 February 2016
The Commission needs to either delay the N reg licensing debacle entry into force for all countries for a couple of years to allow the FAA to conclude a BASA with EASA for all licence types (PPL to ATP) or alternatively they need to issue all affected pilots, most already flying for many years without incident with EASA equivalent licences immediately (if they decide this bit of EASA paper bearing no relevance to state of aircraft registry is required) This should be at no cost to the pilot
Good luck with that, Phobos.
What do you think will happen then Bookworm ?
Bookworm your paragraph date above is written from a month ago by DG, do you actually have any recent useful news ?
Since I know of only two people in the UK who can read and understand the EASA regs (bookworm being one and the other told me he will never post on EuroGA ) it is hardly surprising that EASA realised that more than half the countries in the EU can read the EASA regs, never mind understand them, and of the rest there is possibly just 1 person in each CAA who understands what it means.
I asked the UK CAA head of licensing (face to face) if EASA has given them any guidance on what the “operator” stuff means and he firmly replied NO, adding that they don’t know what it really means either.
