Ibra wrote:
How many immigration airports (POE) are in Switzerland are ok to fly to Tunisia or UK?
Basel Mulhouse, Genf Cointrin, Zürich Kloten, Regionalflugplatz: Altenrhein, Bern Belp, Lugano, Samedan, Sion ,Grenchen, La Chaux de Fond, Lausanne, Locarno
Peter wrote:
The mystery remains, however. I would be totally amazed if the UK CAA banned foreign ULs flown on appropriate foreign UL licenses. Is there a recent (post 31/12/2020) document detailing this, specifically?
I can show you this bit of comms from 2022, where the guy made it clear that he wanted to fly an ULM registered in Germany:
Ladies and gentlemen,
we are planing to fly to england this year with a german micro light. I have the german microlight license, am a flight instructor for microlights and have a German gliding license (LAPL-S).
Is it possible to fly to UK with this licenses with a German Micro light for 14 days?
Thank you for your response
Reply received four months (!) later:
Dear…,
Thank you for your email and please accept our apologies for the delayed response.
From the 1 January 2021, holders of sub-ICAO licences (including national licences and EASA LAPL licences) issued by an EASA Member State may not fly an aircraft registered in an EASA Member State in UK airspace.
To fly microlight aircraft, you would be required to hold either a UK CAA issued Part-FCL LAPL(A) or PPL(A) and complete sufficient differences training with a qualified instructor, or hold a UK PPL(A) and complete sufficient differences training with a qualified instructor or have the Microlight Class Rating endorsed, or hold a UK NPPL(A) and complete the required training to gain the Microlight Class Rating.
Kind regards
….
Flight Crew Licensing
Civil Aviation Authority
I have just gone through the
Application for foreign registered aircraft– exemption to fly without a certificate of airworthiness and/or registration
on the UK CAA website. At no point does that process ask the applicant to submit a pilot’s license or similar (as sad, it’s for the aircraft, and assumes that the pilot has a valid license to fly it).
But valid licenses, according to the CAA, are only:
which, at least would better than what the guy wrote in his email, but would still ban pilots with only a foreign “ULM license”.
Thanks.
I started looking for what the old UK requirements were for an inbound German UL. I found this which states that a 600kg UL (what you call “modern microlights”) is simply not allowed. To avoid mixing up the 600kg angle here (which is a big problem around Europe) I went to look here where the latest I found was this which, when searched for “Germany”, suggests that UK-Germany involves no permit required.
So, unless the UK has, post-brexit, banned all foreign ULs (i.e. the 450kg ones as well), this issue may well be just the 600kg. Has the UK explicitly banned foreign reg uncertifieds? Obviously not, since we have the 28 day max stay for foreign reg homebuilts discussed amply elsewhere and that is all current and recent.
Getting back to the CAA reply, remember that the CAA lost tech expertise about 15 years ago. The people simply left. Some went to Cologne but not necessarily the ones with brains; many just got sick of the job and retired. So the presumption must be that anything from the UK CAA is written by somebody with no technical understanding of the topic. And it could be that the mention of an “LAPL” triggered some reaction. The CAA here does not allow an EASA LAPL to be used here – same as EASA does not recognise a UK LAPL either. Even a monkey in the CAA will know that bit.
The key may be that a UL can also be flown on a UL license, or on a full PPL. Unless the UK has explicitly banned foreign ULs of all MTOW (which would surprise me), Germans can fly a D-reg UL to the UK with a full EASA PPL (certainly) or with a UL license (probably).
EDIT: just seen your 2nd post above, and we may be in agreement that a D-reg UL can be flown to the UK on an EASA PPL but possibly not on a UL license, and probably not on an EASA LAPL. And not a 600kg one, at all…
This may be another effect, under the reciprocal measures.
I think my post here was rather clear on what one can fly in UK airspace today?
Sure, some ORS expired but I have not bothered finding the new ones (there will be a new one every now and then, the links also break)
The links break which is why posting a link alone is a waste of time; you need to download the PDF and, provided it is no bigger than a few MB, upload it here to the forum to form a local copy.
Unfortunately one does have to keep track of the ORS issues to get the real info. Yes it is time consuming and almost nobody has the time.
I wouldn‘t be so sure that the actual MTOW plays any role here. UK CAA also writes:
Anyway, as a bottom line, UK CAA is at least discouraging foreign microlight pilots (most of which do not have a PPL) these days.
For someone coming from Germany, it‘s running the gauntlet anyway, since they first need a permit for Belgium or France (or both) anyway.
It confirms that flying ULM is feasible only in the eastern half of Europe. Which of nothing new, but it sure isn‘t a good thing for GA.
OK.
However I find it hard to square up
most of which do not have a PPL
with the assertions posted here that loads of people are buying the 200k+ ULs 
I mean… if you are paying out a suitcase of €€€, you have prob99 come from the traditional PPL community so you either have a valid PPL or you can do 1 flight and revalidate it.
Some do, but many don‘t. I don‘t have numbers at hand, and I agree that many ULM owners actually have a PPL, but if looking at ULM pilots in Germany, the majority won‘t have a PPL.
