Experimental / homebuilt in Spain

@Heiner posts moved to a previous thread on an identical topic.

Reading all this posts I got more and more the impression that you can only stationed and fly the plane in the country it is registered. United Europe!!!

I’m celebrating one year anniversary of owning an RV8, and it hasn’t flown yet. I flew it back from Denmark last September, and it’s been a paper chase since :(. Fingers crossed it gets permission soon

With measures like this (which appears to be a UK and French coordinated action) it looks like there is a general tightening of homebuilts based in a “foreign” country.

What “based” means is never defined and clearly it is hard to define especially if the thing lives discreetly in a hangar, and doesn’t have a Mode S transponder (or never turns it on) and just does simple VFR flights. Whether that level of mission capability is sufficient will vary from one owner to another…

If I can be of any help in the future for anyone I am building an experimental/amateur built RV-12 in Spain and I fly another amateur-built plane here in the meantime. As has been mentioned before, rules in Spain are not very well defined and depending on which inspector/regulator you speak to you might get different answers. I will give you the state of matters as I believe they stand:

• As of now there hasn´t been any experimental registered in Spain that has tried to be IFR certified.
• There are several experimental builds in progress now with the intention of requesting IFR approval and so far AESA has told them that if their equipment complies with IFR requirements they will approve it.
• Flight controllers in Spain, in my personal experience, are not very GA friendly, nor are the big public airports that are IFR approved.
• If you want to fly across Europe without problems, a certified aircraft sounds like a better option.
• In Spain they are now increasingly harassing foreign-registered planes based here, trying to enforce the maximum 180-day/year limit, but as far as I know no real consequences/fines have resulted after the harassment. There are tons of N, G, D, PH registered planes based here and they remain here.
• I am on the board of the Spanish experimental aircraft association (Asociacion Aviacion Experimental) and we are currently working with AESA to try to explicitly recognize that experimentals can be IFR and Night certified for the new regulation that is expected to be drafted between this year and next. We are also trying to improve the process for importing foreign registered experimentals, currently you cannot import them and re-register them, you have to disassemble them and request a new construction project as if it was a new project. We are also trying to have experimentals allowed on flight schools, and we trying to convince AESA (local regulator) to not implement new proposed limits on experimentals (they want to limit us to flights below 10,000ft, among other things).

As for flying/being based from LECU/Cuatro Vientos in Madrid I would recommend having a look at Casarrubios/LEMT. LECU has a shortage of operational hours due to the surrounding residential areas, you have to go through security and file FPL for any flight, there is no hangar space available and the flight schools there have to fight to keep their planes on the few spots outside. Casarrubios/LEMT is not great, it also suffers from an overload of school traffic and flight procedures are not always followed by all traffic but it has hangar availability, all fuels and a restaurant, and no security gates/FPL to file everytime you want to go to your plane.

we are currently working with AESA to try to explicitly recognize that experimentals can be IFR

I think this would be useless. As you said, Spanish IFR airports are a terrible experience. Particularly „permit pilots“ will not be typical customers for these airports. Plus the weather is almost never really IFR in most parts of country. So IFR being permitted wouldn‘t help much. What you do enroute. in class G, is totally up to the pilot anyway and nobody knows the flight condition.

Hi,

I like to purchase an Experimental that is registered in Spain and bring it over to Germany.

I’m slightly concerned. The aircraft is airworthy but there is not much documentation about previous maintenance. According to the seller, there is not much needed for experimentals. Is that true? What maintenance can experimental aircraft owners do in Spain themselve? What rules are to follow to keep it airworthy?

Also, it has a 25khz radio and no ELT. In Germany, 8.33 khz is needed (and I thought all Europe mandates that) and an ELT is also mandatory. Is that different in Spain?

Any other important things I need to know? I will only do VFR day flying but want to travel europe with it and cross some borders.

Many Thanks
Maik

If it was France not Germany, I would walk away unless you are prepared to take it apart and document putting it back together again. The ducumentation is one of the most important things here.

maik.rolle wrote:

In Germany, 8.33 khz is needed (and I thought all Europe mandates that)

Strictly speaking 8.33 kHz is not mandatory in Europe for VFR, but you will be so severely restricted if you don’t have it so from a practical point of view it is a must.

I guess you can use a PLB in substitute for an ELT. (It’s legal in Norway and Sweden.)

What kind of radio is it? Could be fairly simple to replace it for a 8,33-radio.