Belgian Administration now allows engine preservation flights. I planned a 1 hr flight for tomorrow.
Apparently Shoreham have just stated that the CAA have accepted that maintenance flights can be regarded as “essential” and will accept arrangements being made for such flights.
Indeed; this has been known for some time. Shoreham is not the only airfield which is not closed.
You will still get hung drawn and quartered on UK GA social media 
Ah, didn’t know that. I thought it was a new initiative from Shoreham.
I knew about the hanging drawing and quartering of course. In fact our aircraft is scheduled for a delivery flight for its annual and ARC today.
I’m looking forward to the howls of outrage when it’s spotted on FR24.
On their website for a long time:
Maintaining social distance is trivial there. You can maintain 20-30m easily. Also not touch anything. There is only 1 sliding door latch and you can do that with your foot. So zero risk of passing anything on.
Great airport, great staff on the ground and great staff in the tower.
They have commercial flights, etc.
As always, the biggest problem is the pompous sanctimonious self appointed police on social media (not just UK; it is apparent everywhere). I am sure people were reporting each other during the war also but it was suppressed by the State censorship in those days.
Jean wrote:
Belgian Administration now allows engine preservation flights. I planned a 1 hr flight for tomorrow.
Great ! How often can you fly or do ground runs ?
I dig into this subject in France and this is what I found :
So pilots driving to make these ground runs legally declare completing a “general interest task”. Flights can occur when a calendar limit is reached by the maintenance programme I guess there is none for ULs), but all flights must be approved by email by the corresponding federation (so federation have an enforcement authority now).This exemption is only usable for club aircraft. There is none for private owners of any kind of aircraft. (who do not exercice any general interest tasks, so no big deal if they die in the next months)
As underlines RSA (french amateur builers association) : “Let’s accept to have a flat tire and a little corrosion in our cylinders, it does not endanger us.” 
French AOPA wrote a much smarter article about engine corrosion here
Well, not completely accurate, but it gives some good ideas :
Anyway, there is nothing AOPA members can do with their aircraft, except putting money aside for their next crankshaft ..
Peter, you last meme is accurate for me
If lockdown is ended on May 11 as announced yesterday, it will be 2 months of no flying for all of us. Someone should start to store landing gears for the coming months
Just got back from my maintenance flight. You get to do one flight every 30 days. If you need more, you’ll have to get a separate permission from the BCAA.
Excellent!
If lockdown is ended on May 11 as announced yesterday, it will be 2 months of no flying for all of us. Someone should start to store landing gears for the coming months
There will be a lot of crashes also. We normally get a lot of crashes when the sun comes out because so many pilots shut down for all the “winter” months, and in this case these people have not flown for that time, plus as long again due to the shutdown. I don’t agree with shutting down for the winter because there are so many good flying days then, but a lot of people who “emigrated” to the farm strip scene get little choice because they lose the runway.
Makes me sick seeing posts elsewhere suggesting “social pressure” is applied to anybody seen flying.
Peter thank you for posting the picture from Shoreham. Is there any definitive “instruction” from either government or CAA about maintenance flights. I need to run my aircraft for at least an hour to get everything checked out after standing idle since mid January but do not relish the thought of be accosted by some jobsworth somewhere.
Also of course will need fuel.
Any thought anyone please?
This is my opinion which is worth what you are paying for it
Your biggest challenge is not getting pulled up by a police officer on your way to the airport. He is not going to be interested in fine legal arguments (he was recruited for the ability to just about read and write and hopefully not too much more) and while you may get a nice one, you probably won’t, because anybody stopping people will have heard every imaginable story already, and this is a wonderful opportunity to be “the boss”.
So work out a story. You are getting some food for your mum who is a vulnerable person. There is a supermarket near the airport, yes?
As regards the engine run or the flight, you have a clear duty / reasonable excuse to do this. As posted further back, there is the key word “including” in the list of activities in the regs, so the list is non exhaustive. And the engine is worth say 30k so you have a reasonable reason to protect it. If I got picked up for that, I would pay the £30, but after that I would very happily get a lawyer and go to court with it.
You are not supposed to travel to your second home (as some politicians found out, after a trial in the “court of public opinion” ) but if the roof there caves in, you have a clear duty to cover it so it doesn’t suffer further damage due to rain. The insurance company will expect you to minimise your loss, in line with standard insurance laws. The current regs include a “legal duty” (and go on to another non exhaustive list of what that could be) so that’s another avenue. Your engine is in a category which is no different and probably worth as much as that roof.
Obviously, do social distancing. That’s a no brainer to do right. Carry a wad of disposable gloves in your pocket, etc. Unlike the guy I saw this morning, wearing gloves and opening a latch on a gate, and then seemingly sticking a finger up his nose, which makes one realise that the next slightly smarter virus will totally wipe out our stupid species.
If you share the plane, or rent it, then the situation is far harder. I would want to be sure nobody was inside for a week (that seems to be the current data on longest life on a smooth metal or plastic surface), wipe the door handles or anything the hangar crew may have touched with IPA, etc. And really work hard to not touch your face during the flight, and then wash your hands before getting back into the car.
I have not seen anything definitive from the CAA other than what as posted here some time ago. They clearly state VFR flight has not been banned and they did not have to include that phrase, so reasonable reasons are clearly intended to be ok. There is some new guidance supposedly to come out soon, which is good because they all read the forums and will have seen the sanctimonious garbage posted there. With Belgium formally allowing a 1hr flight per month I am sure the CAA is looking at this. Let’s hope they don’t do what the DGAC did in France and allow it only for AOPA members
Thankfully you don’t have to justify this to the general public. It would be like complaining that the toilet in your private jet is broken.
