I don’t agree with the remark about keeping the chair or pesident of the association happy. None of the ULM people I know give a fig about that.
They just want the freedom to fly, build, maintain as they wish. Any association chair or Pesident who gets in the way of that will soon find themselves ignored and then replaced at the next AGM. They want to be the ones to decide whether whatever is proposed is worth the loss of freedom.
gallois wrote:
I don’t agree with the remark about keeping the chair or pesident of the association happy.
It seems that only people from the UK have a hangup about aeroclub presidents. I wonder what the club scene there is really like…
boscomantico wrote:
Sure, with Switzerland, you never know what ideas they come up with to satisfy their desire for law and order…
Looking at some stuff we can read in our both favorite aviation paper, I’d say some things in Germany defy belief as much as this. At least we have not yet had our BAZL fine pilots for planning flights through areas they forgot to report and neither do we have the ZüP. In my experience since 1983 working with the BAZL/FOCA is usually quite straightforward and hassle free, provided you (and your CAMO) do their homework. However, it has been a fact since about 20 years that they have shifted towards stricter legal views for various reasons, one being that a lot of lawyers started to take look at some of their “can do” attitude displayed earlier, when Switzerland was one of the more progressive authorities on aviation. After the Crossair accidents and recently the Ju Air crash, this kind of things have basically been stifled altogether.
In that light, while I have no idea why originally the ban for UL’s was decided back in the days, it appears very much that the current AIC is intended to address the legal aspect that national UL licenses of surrounding countries and whatever certifications if any they have for the airplanes are in a grey area in the legal framework here, in as so far as nobody really has taken any clear decision whether they are legal or not. Flying without a license valid for the territory you fly over is part of this, as is operating airplanes without the legal background to do so both will rise eyebrows in the legal departments there.
Yea, some regs here may be stricter than elsewhere, but at least you know that the rules they do make are not made with pencil and depend on interpretation of several different sub-authorities.
I know in UK, some SEP/SSEA regulations from FCL/LASORS did creep into Microlights in the band 500kg-600kg, like difference training and variants being formal, it was one of the reason why many people objected to this but they have to take it from CAA with a sour taste
Most people with NPPL due to medical declaration but have superior skills on flying these can’t have FI or CRI, asking the typical FI/CRI from ATO twith DA40 to teach RG gear in grass strips
FCL/LASORS??
LASORS is where UK NPPL privileges are lised, I am not aware of other places (other than the LAA or BMAA websites or asking at the clubhouse)
Maybe someone knows better where the actual Microlights licencing rules are written?
aart wrote:
In Spain, a foreign-reg UL may not stay longer than 6 months in the country, so the permit serves as a starting date.
So? You already have to file a flight plan to cross borders so just keep the flight plan data to establish the starting point. Not exactly hard.
Also, compare this to cars. You have to locally register the car after some time (6 months I believe) and still we don’t require individual permits for every car to cross borders.
Permits that are always granted are pointless bureaucracy.
I guess after EASA took most of their work, regulators now have to keep themselves busy elsewhere.
Incidently, it appears that not only Switzerland is tightening the reins on ULs:
According to this, German residents are explicitly forbidden to operate an non-german registered UL’s within the territory of Germany. Doing so is regarded as a criminal act. It does not matter if the operator carries a license by the country of origin of the particular airframe as long as the airframe itself is not certified in Germany and registered there.
IMHO, this is a quite heftier action than just making overflight more difficult.
https://www.dulv.de/node/347
Google translated local copy
What is remarkable here is that we are talking aviation law, not customs or whatever, as it’s always been a problem operating any foreign registered vehicle or airplane in countries by residents due to customs problems. This is a totally different thing however.
And looking at the possible implications of this, N-reg airplane holders might want to take notice too. While they have not been targeted so far, they may well be next.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
According to this, German residents are explicitly forbidden to operate an non-german registered UL’s within the territory of Germany.
Does “ein Luftsportgerät” mean only UL or does it also include LSAs, gliders and such?
So? You already have to file a flight plan to cross borders so just keep the flight plan data to establish the starting point. Not exactly hard.
True. So maybe the thinking is to use it as a tool to alert the applicant to the specific UL rules in Spain. IIRC these rules are listed on the form or reference is made to a document where they are. But you could be right that it’s just senseless burocracy being the main driver.
