172driver, it seems you are screwed 
I think the point is that you can legally FLY in all EASA-land when you have ELP. But, that is not the same as saying you can legally operate any aviation radio with just an ELP. A two way ground based radio requires local language knowledge since there is no requirement for English profiency to operate a local radio.
A complete mess it is, but the intentions are clear. That aviation lawyer should loose his license as a lawyer IMO, he acts as a petty bureaucrat, not as a lawyer.
172driver, it seems you are screwed
Well, the whole thing doesn’t really affect me (at least not at present), but I think it’s not me, but rather Europe (EU, EASA, etc) that’s screwed! And big time at that…
I know nothing more about this, other than what’s posted above.
But I don’t think that the two statements are contradictory.
To me, you need two things to operate a radio in an aircraft:
1. A valid licence for the pilot
2. A valid licence for the radio.
The above quotes seem to suggest that if the pilot is licenced to speak English, then they can speak any other languange they like too.
However it apears to suggest that the radio station licence might be restricted to a particular languange, and this must allow it to be used for comms in German.
I’ve no idea if there is any languange restriction on our radio station licence; I’ll look it up the next time I’m at the aircraft.
But this would seem to suggest that if the pilot is licenced to speak German, that might not be good enough if the aircraft station licence restricts it to English!
If there is no restriction on the aircraft station licence, then perhaps a pilot with English Languange is good to go and use it in German?
To give some background, I am a Brit living in Germany (my mother tongue is english, am also fluent in German) with a JAR-FCL PPL issued by Germany. I also hold the BZF 1, have english Level 6 noted in my licence (this is still a JAR FCL Licence, not an EASA one). The airfield I fly from is noted as GE in the AIP, meaning all radio communications to be carried out in German.
When the language proficiency requirements were requested, the first thing I did was contact the LBA to ask how I could get the German language proficiency to allow me to fly from my home base because, as I understood it then, without a german Language proficiency notation I was not allowed to land at airfields with only German as the language to be used. I was sent the text in the link and was informed that, as I held the BZF 1 and had an english language proficiency level 6, I needed nothing further.
So, back to Rhino: the simplest solution, as far as I can see it would be to simply take the BZF 1 radio test. It’s a selection of multichoice questions where you need a pass rate of at least 70% followed by a simulation of an approach and a departure into a large airport such as EDDK whereby one is carried out in German, the other in English. Then you have your BZF 1 which doesn’t expire plus your english proficiency entry which means you fulfil the requirements to fly in Germany and land at airfields with only german radio. The cost of the test was €130 (if I recall correctly) and I sat it in Koeln, at the Bundesnetzagentur there. It took one morning in total because we were split into groups for the oral testing. If you know your german rules and regulations for radio communications (exam 11 from Peters Software is a good software to allow you to learn and test yourself, if you don’t know them….) and are relatively confident with your R/T, you won;t have an issue with passing it…..
EDIT: In case anyone wants to study for the BZF using the Exam 11, please make sure you buy Exam 11 for BZF / AZF because only this has the multichoice question catalogue in it, the BZF 1 is an add-on which reviews the text blocks which are used for testing your understanding of the english language…..
Steve, thanks for this!
It’s basically what I now figured I should do – except I might just do the BZF II (German only) because I already hold the British Radiotelephony License, so no need to have some German bureaucrat test my English capabilities.
I’ve no idea if there is any language restriction on our radio station licence; I’ll look it up the next time I’m at the aircraft.
I looked up our radio station licence at the weekend. It makes no reference to any language whatsoever. So my reading is that the station licence places no restriction on what language is used to transmit and receive on it.
