we should get AOPA involved and have a way of taking French LP and adding them on other EASA licences.
I beg to differ. We should refuse having to take LP tests for the language of whatever country we wish to fly into (my Latvian is slightly better than my Finnish, but I don’t think I’d even get level 1 in either…). There’s no end to it really. How is your Bulgarian?
The point is that, where before one had the benefit of doubt, i.e. you could only get in trouble when your illustrated lack of language fluency caused illustrated trouble, now we are required by the French to deliver proof of our ability before we may push the PTT at a French-only aerodrome. In other words, we always were by default innocent, now the default option is we are guilty.
We should refuse having to take LP tests for the language of whatever country we wish to fly into.
Exactly. I fly since 36 years, if my counting is correct. For 30 of these years, ICAO language tests did not even exist. And aeroplanes did not crash and burn by the dozen because of that. There may be a reason for the English test when flying IFR internationally, but apart from that, I will not visit places that require it. As simple as that.
I see this kind of discussion now for the third or forth time and frankly, I don’t understand the issue. The reach of FCL.055 is limited to the scope of application for these regulation and that is where ever international regulations are touched. With this in mind, FCL.055 a) only makes sure everybody in contact with overregional authorities is able to understand basic english – that’s it fullstop. FCL.055 does not accroach regulation beyond reach and that is i.e. local and regional regulations outside the international sphere. If a country wants to make regulations for small fields and language usage, it has to do so in their country AIP. If there is a French-only radio setting in the AIP, France has to define what happens in case if. In my eyes it is definitely not under the authorities of EASA to regulate anything for these local setting, which are currently under the jurisdiction of local countries. If all countries decide to give that authority to EASE, fine, but they did not yet.
the Pilot und Flugzeug discussion on French LP is here (starts with microlight regulation and then mentions French LP)
https://www.pilotundflugzeug.de/forum/2014,03,15,21,4940455
The reach of FCL.055 is limited to the scope of application for these regulation and that is where ever international regulations are touched.
The “reach of FCL.055” is the licensing of pilots flying aircraft that come within the scope of the Basic Regulation, i.e. EU-registered aircraft that do not fall within Annex II. It applies to those pilots when they fly at French only airfields just as it applies at CDG. It may be possible for French law to demand that a particular language is spoken on the radio, but it is not within its competence for it to place additional requirements on the licensing of pilots flying aircraft that come within the scope of the Basic Regulation.
I totally agree with Bookworm.
we should get AOPA involved and have a way of taking French LP and adding them on other EASA licences.
Utter nonsense! There is no such requirement so don’t try making one up.
Then we should get AOPA (Germany, UK) involved to get in touch with AOPA France in order to stop the France authorities from issuing fines to pilots without any legal basis.
Is there any evidence that fines have been issued? If they are illegal, simply appeal against them!
An appeal is not possible for a pilot who is just visiting.
For example, some years ago, I landed at La Rochelle. Paid the landing fee. Then got chased for it a year later. I had not kept the receipt… I had two options: (a) pay it again or (b) argue with them and perhaps get arrested next time I land in France.
This has happened at several others places – France and Italy. I recall Pontoise chasing me for about a year, despite me having an email from one or another department confirming I had paid it, several times throughout that year. Caglieri chased me for months for some other charge. Airport admin is mostly totally incompetent. But I know from several UK ATCOs that they keep a list of outstanding-debt aircraft up in the tower and impound them if they land there again.
Now I keep all airport receipts for at least a year.
If you have a few €M floating around, you can chuck say 100k at a firm of lawyers in Paris and leave them to it…
Peter,
Different problem, fees are one thing a fine is another.
