Originally Posted by
Eutychus
Um, so, should I have been avoiding the Aurigny Trislanders? (I always found it rather touching that the reverse of the safety sheet bore a diagram of the aircraft controls, as though one was supposed to clamber over the seats and take over in the event of pilot incapacitation...)
That's not what I said. I said it was my admittedly SLF perception as regards the safety of passengers.The reason being that as pax we were issued safety harnesses, the pilot made sure we had properly attached them and understood their use, gently insisted their spouse wore one too despite protestations, and generally seemed to be paying due care and attention. The G-reg pilot legged it to the plane amid oncoming fog and (again to my untrained eye) took off in a tearing hurry, no flotation device or explanation of any kind.
The regulatory side of things is what I'm trying to get my head around.
Excuse my ignorance again. Both the N-reg in the accident and the N-reg I flew in over the presumed accident site came from French airspace and were flying in CI airspace. Is this unusual? Would it be typical for non-US based pilots to have the appropriate FAA privileges in this part of the world, or does nobody look at the paperwork too closely (again, it seems to me there are people flying around the CI like this all the time).
[sorry, cross-post with @Edward Teach ]
N-reg aircraft flying around Europe is not unusual, and I would suspect (but note I have no evidence to support) the pilots being properly licensed. Most pilots appreciate that the paperwork is there to keep them and passengers safe and legal, so they follow it.