Hi Peter
No I am on the N registration and have been since 2007, best thing, esp for a turbine (oil change every 400 hours etc), is that it gets rid of all those 50hour checks.
The reason I go to Guernsey is to walk from the airfield to Le Gouffre restaurant for lunch and then a 2 hour walk along the coastal path, you cant beat it, as you know
Peter wrote:
The answer should be in this thread somewhere. A 2-reg needs a Guernsey approved mechanic of some sort. Most 2-regs fly to Guernsey for maintenance.@quatrelle will know.
Trouble is that a lot of advice in this thread predates 2020 so it seems most posters weren’t sure what the post-transition period status was going to be. Now we know what the situation is. What confuses me is really two things that I couldn’t get from this thread (or maybe I just missed the right posts). Firstly, can you fly a 2-reg in the UK with your CAA license alone? And secondly, I assume if you want to fly a 2-reg in the EASA-land you’d need a Guernsey license validation?
What transition? For VAT, Guernsey versus say UK is same as e.g. USA versus UK. Nothing I know of changed due to brexit.
Guernsey, like the IOM, AFAIK accepts all ICAO papers and validates them for the particular aircraft. You need a medical issued by the same country as the license.
2-reg has a curious advantage (same as M-reg) that you can transfer to the reg without having to get an Export CofA. This makes the transfer to it less risky than say to N.
IIRC, 2-reg has another narrow advantage that if you can get a UK/EASA medical but cannot get an FAA medical (this is possible in quite specific situations) then you can fly the 2-reg on your UK/EASA medical but the registry does accept FAA modifications. This can be better than the obvious solution (N-reg) because the only way you could fly an N-reg on a UK/EASA medical only would be with a 61.75 PPL but if you get a standalone FAA PPL/CPL you lose that option for ever – here.
I looked at 2-reg some years ago but the maintenance would have been a big hassle.
You can fly a 2-reg aircraft worldwide. It is an ICAO certified aircraft.
Most of the advantages of a M-reg or 2-reg etc are around the tax treatment. This involves setting up a company there, and – certainly on M-reg – you can get a very favourable Benefit in Kind treatment. The IOM Director of Aviation once explained this to me but I have forgotten the details. It won’t be applicable to most piston GA scenarios.
Got it thanks.
If there has been any brexit related change or transition I would very much like to know.
The C.I. have always been outside the UK VAT system.
The IOM has always been inside the UK VAT system.
Hey guys,
has anyone of you already registered an aircraft (in the size of a Beech Bonanza or Cessna 172, etc.) in either Guernsey or San Marino? Can you give me some ideas about the cost?
As I see it, the advantage is that I wouldn’t have to be based in either one of the two countries and they accept both EASA and FAA. That would make the choice of avionics, props, etc. much broader and help in many cases. However, I am told that the cost for registering the plane would exceed the benefit for our small planes quickly. Therefore, I am looking for first hand experiences.
Anyone who can share his experiences?
Thanks and BR
Constantin
[ @constantin_w post moved to existing thread ]
I did never register a plane personally but just to give a recent example with a plane which was San Marino registered. It was run according to FAA rules. So far so easy. But then it was supposed to be modified with avionics. On an FAA plane a 337 form would have been filed and verified by the FAA. Now how does that happen if it is not really FAA registered? This did cause quite some issues. Running a plane to XYZ rules only works as long as the precedure does not involve any advanced interaction with the XYZ CAA because they will not provide such service to non registered aircraft.
constantin_w wrote:
That would make the choice of avionics, props, etc. much broader and help in many cases.
I would choose EASA reg or FAA reg. Else you might have a real problem at resale if you install a combination of avionics which would not be allowed under FAA or EASA rules but is an incompatible mix of both.
constantin_w wrote:
As I see it, the advantage is that I wouldn’t have to be based in either one of the two countries
But do you have to do maintenance or annual ARC checks there?
My personal buttom line so far is that those exotic registrations do not provide enough advantages for small GA aircraft to justify the extra effort. This might be different for bigger aircraft when combined with some local company. For example I was told IOM companies are allowed to charter aircraft to their share holders without adding VAT on the charter price. This alone can make a difference of many million a year on a Gulfstream.
Great point 
How can you apply a mod to a T7-reg operated under FAA Part 91? You are hardly going to send the 337 to the FAA 
The registry has to provide a service for mods etc.
Years ago I had a meeting with a soon-departing director of aviation on the IOM and he made it clear that a) most of the advantage is in taxation (not mods) and b) he didn’t like Part 91 (spurious reasons given). I came out less than impressed. But the IOM has a properly run registry, whereas T7 probably barely knows what a 337 form is.
I vaguely recall hearing that T7 has advantages related to “the way business runs in Italy”. There was also some dodge around the Brussels “EU resident operator / dual papers requirement”.
This thread is worth reading whole. Lots of snippets of info. Personally I would avoid T7. I looked at it and was quoted something like 20k to put the TB20 on it (I was interested specifically in the “EU based operator” dodge) which is ridiculous.
@valerio may know more about T7.
@constantin_w check your PMs. You started another thread.
Peter wrote:
A 2-reg needs a Guernsey approved mechanic of some sort.
When I was busy switching to the Jersey register, the EASA Part-145 company that is doing my maintenance got their Guernsey validation thereof within hours (they confused the two islands and applied for the wrong one). So the “approved mechanic” thing seems not to be a hurdle. However (at the time I was considering it), below a certain MTOW (not sure out of the top of my head, but the threshold is certainly 2t or more), unless the owner is Guernsey resident, the aircraft is allowed on the register only if the maintenance is managed in Guernsey. Which I understood as “the CAMO is in Guernsey, not necessarily the actual mechanic”.
That agrees with what I’ve heard.
Your mechanic needs to be “Guernsey approved”.
