This is from the MLA Flying in Europe 2023 booklet posted on Euroga (thankyou very much to the poster)
Comments:
NATS Aeronautical Information Service www.ais.org.uk
Applications for a permit to fly in UK airspace can be made online here:
https://apply.caa.co.uk/CAAPortal/terms-and-conditions.htm?formCode=aea
The permit costs £ 64.
The following aircraft do not require permission:
Home-built aircraft are exempted under ORS4 No 909
http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/ors4_909.pdf
French registered factory built microlights are exempted under ORS4 No 910
http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/ORS4_910.pdf
United Kingdom
Permission required yes,
Contact address CAA Applications and Approvals Department
2E Aviation House
Gatwick Airport South
West Sussex RH6-0YR
United Kingdom
Contact person Applications and Approvals
Telephone +44 1293 768 374
Fax +44 1293 573 860
E-mail [email protected]
Website http://www.caa.co.uk (Foreign Aircraft Exemptions and Go)
MLA association BMAA – British Microlight Aircraft Association
Address The Bullring
Deddington, Banbury Oxfordshire
OX15 0TT
United Kingdom
Telephone +44 (0)1869 338888
Fax +44 (0)1869 337116
E-mail [email protected]
Website http://www.bmaa.org
National Aeroclub ROYAL AERO CLUB OF THE UNITED KINGDOM
Address Mr. David Phipps
31 St. Andrew’s Road
Leicester
LE2 8RE
United Kingdom
Telephone +44 116 244 0182
Fax +44 116 244 0645
Email [email protected]
Web http://www.royalaeroclub.org
June 2023 Page 46 of 43 Microlight Flying in Europe
very few (zero?) ULs are limited to the country of reg. I’ve never seen a “permit” with geo limitations.
I provided an example of standard FAA limitations text in post 07 above. One would have to check each European country’s regulations separately to see if a similar situation applies in any of them, and anyway unless the event is like the ‘World Series’ in US baseball it is international, not just European 
This aircraft does not meet the requirements of the ICAO applicable comprehensive and detailed airworthiness code as provided by Annex 8 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation. The owner/operator of this aircraft must obtain written permission from another Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) before operating this aircraft in or over that country. That written permission must be carried aboard the aircraft together with the U.S. airworthiness certificate and, upon request, be made available to an Aviation Safety Inspector (ASI) or the CAA in the country of operation.
The word “must” is used which I interpret as a requirement to comply with FAA regulation regardless of what the other country may require (or not).
On the airframe level especially (and to a lesser extent for pilot certification) a precedent for something like this, as mentioned in Post 05, might be the World Aerobatic Championships in which almost none of the competing aircraft have ICAO recognized airworthiness. They are regardless shipped wherever the event occurs and flown in competition. Perhaps a blanket national approval is put in place for the event and all participants.
Italy. No questions were asked of him or any of the other competitors with similar modified planes and national airworthiness status.
Sure, as long as nothing happens and you get away with it, it’s ok.
Yes but AFAIK very few (zero?) ULs are limited to the country of reg. I’ve never seen a “permit” with geo limitations
I believe you that you haven‘t seen it, but they do exist. Italy‘s AeCI has recently started issuing documents that restrict flight of some of „their“ ultralights to the territory of Italy. It was speculated that this was a cockup of the incompetent people at the AeCI, as they were trying to say „take note that other countries might not automatically allow you to fly this contraption within their territory“, but then ended up writing something much more restrictive. I then didn‘t follow up any more though.
On the initial question, I tend to be with Cobalt. It‘s not true that there is necessarily a permit for the aircraft and a separate permit for the pilot. Rather, when (for example) the UK puts in place a procedure called
CAA application process for foreign registered aircraft– exemption to fly without a certificate of airworthiness and/or registration…
then this includes the aspect of piloting privileges. Even if – as is the case – the procedure doesn‘t even ask the pilot to attach his „pilots license“ at all (it does only ask for the aircraft‘s permit to fly, registration, insurance, etc., but not for the pilots license). (By the way, I never understood what these CAAs do with these documents…. most of them will not be written in English anyway…)
In other words: IF it is generally possible to obtain permission for a foreign ULM, and IF at the same time there were the need to get one‘s foreign ULM pilot license „recognized“, then there would be some procedure for that. But there is if course no real clarity on this topic.
Interesting that the BMAA seems to think otherwise, and therefore is apparently trying to obtain clarification, or some sort of procedure, from the CAA for the pilot licensing side of this issue. And some ultralight pilots seem to want it too, as some won‘t fly to the UK without previously getting clarification that as long as they get the mentioned permission, they are good to go with just their home-country issued ultralight license…
The incertainty within the German ultralight crowd partly comes from an email exchange between a German ultralight pilot and the UK CAA, posted on a German UL forum and reposted here by myself a while ago, where the pilot asked (certainly a bit imprecisely)
and UK CAA guy replied (also rather vaguely)
Silvaire wrote:
One would have to check each European country’s regulations separately to see if a similar situation applies in any of them
ULs are a special case. They are defined by EASA, but each country have their own regulations of how they are operated. After Brexit, the ULs are probably not even defined in the UK? Anyway, the general regulations for each country does not restrict it to that country. They can be flown world wide, and licenses are valid world wide, but that doesn’t mean the other country allow ULs from anywhere to go there, as well as allow foreign licenses, although that is the norm more and more within EASA.
There is no license to fly an UL in the same way an EASA PPL is a license to fly an EASA registered aircraft. What is needed is a proof of competence of some sort. An EASA PPL may work as a proof of competence, but so may equally well FAA PPL, or a military license. They may also not work at all depending on the country, not without an hour or two with an instructor and some sort of theoretical exam.
All in all they are more like racing cars legally, only they are usually allowed also on the roads, except the autobahn It shouldn’t be a problem for the UK CAA to fix this in no time.
LeSving wrote:
ULs are a special case. They are defined by EASA
In the EU, but not internationally or even for all of Europe. The EU specifically is about 3% of the world’s land area. The topic is ostensibly an international event, The World Microlight Championships, not a regional event and I would assume that arrangements would need to recognize that many microlights are limited by their country of registration to operation within their country of registration unless otherwise authorized. That means the organizers in conjunction with UK CAA need to be prepared to issue written permission, unless of course its really intended to be a regional event.
Silvaire wrote:
I would assume that arrangements would need to recognize that many microlights are limited by their country of registration to operation within their country of registration unless otherwise authorized
There’s nothing the UK can do about that in any case. They can not authorize illegal use on behalf of someone else. What they can do is to allow ULs that are allowed to fly outside their country of registration to also fly in the UK. This basically means all of Europe, where 90% of ULS in the world are.
As per my example above (linked twice in Posts 07 and 12) the national (non-UK) operating imitations may only stipulate that permission of the airspace owner be obtained and kept on board in order to be legal. By providing that authorization the UK CAA may thereby be able to make UK airspace operation legal for a microlight aircraft on a non-UK registry. Link Number Three
Inkognito wrote:
Italy. No questions were asked of him or any of the other competitors with similar modified planes and national airworthiness status.Sure, as long as nothing happens and you get away with it, it’s ok.
Actually I think it wasn’t legal because the Limitations of FAA Experimental Exhibition airworthiness on the modified competition plane required written permission from the airspace owner to be on board if outside of the US, even at a WAC event. My friend and presumably everybody else on the team who was flying an Experimental Category aircraft decided to go for anyway, and did indeed get away with it. At the time his major comment about competing in Italy was “the food and events were fantastic”
This article has some references to the event. Apparently there was more to it than the food 
The regulatory issue here for the pilot/owner (whether it is microlights or any other plane with non-ICAO compliant airworthiness) is what a state of registry anywhere in the world requires, assuming that the airspace owner has no prohibition on the operation. The German microlight owner might not be worried about the UK CAA, but rightly or wrongly he might be worried about what the LBA thinks of him operating outside of territory where EASA UL definitions are applicable. In the case of some Italian microlight owners there apparently might be concern about what Italian regulators think of operations outside Italy. One would hope that the state of registry operating limitations applicable to worldwide operation of the particular plane would be clearly documented in the aircraft papers, and that if the airspace owner were OK with the operation they would also be willing to document it.
