212 - you're quite right, but given Nick does business in the colonies it would be unreasonable to expect him to be fully conversant with aspects of UK air law that most brits struggle with.
The UK has a sub-ICAO document called a "Permit to Fly", which is used for anything where UK-CAA have been persuaded that the machine is basically safe, but is not (generally for the sort of reasons that Nick gives) eligible for issue of an ICAO compliant CofA.
Some of the Gazelles, and all of the Westland Scouts flying on the UK civil register are approved under permits to fly. The basic requirements to obtain one are:-
- An acceptable safety record in military service
- A new set of operating and maintenance procedures to reflect civil use.
- A review of the aircraft against any relevant civil regulations (instrument fit minima, compliance with Airworthiness Notices, harness standards, radio types, etc.)
- CAA approval of a civil maintenance organisation to look after it.
Once obtained, the aircraft will be limited to day-VMC flight, for private or (owner's) training use only and because it's a UK only document the aircraft would need individual overflight/landing permission from any other country if it were to leave our borders. There's also a bit of a debate at the moment about passenger carrying - the rules at present limit to minimum essential crew + 1, but there are voices trying hard to get this modified to something more sensible to perfectly safe larger aircraft.
There is supposed very shortly to be a new CAP coming out - CAP733, which will be covering the permit regs, but it seems to be caught in a logjam at Gatwick somewhere.
From my experience, I'd say that Lynx has a good chance of gaining a permit when it's retired, so long as it's not totally out of hours and doesn't develop a suddenly higher accident rate in it's last few years in service.
G