Readers of this thread might find the following of some interest.
The CAA recently prosecuted a microlight pilot for Recklessly Endangering the Safety of an Aircraft. It was dealt with in the Magistrate’s Court and he faced the prospect of up to six months imprisonment or a hefty fine if convicted. In addition the CAA’s costs were over £20,000 and the pilot was having to pay privately for his defence.
The pilot had learnt to fly on flexwings and had a reasonable number of hours experience. He purchased a three axis Rans aircraft.
The terms of his CAA licence entitled him to fly either type without any legal requirement for difference training. (n.b. Difference training is now a requirement of the current NPPL microlight licence).
Before collecting his Rans he flew a different but identical Rans a number of times with at least one experienced pilot who effectively checked him out on type. As the other pilot (pilots) was not an instructor and was the aircraft Captain these flights did not appear in the defendant’s log book.
He collected the Rans and then flew a number of flights all shown in his log book as “circuits”. On each occasion the log book showed the name of one of two other people as pax (these were the experienced Rans pilots but as they were not instructors these could not be logged as P U/T or technically as P1/S). The pilot entered himself as P1.
The pilot was subsequently involved in an accident were the aircraft stalled on a go-around at low level. Subsequent to the accident the CAA called for the pilot’s logbook. As set out above there was no record of any “instructional” flying or difference training.
The prosecution case was that (although there was no legal requirement for difference training) the pilot was reckless in flying the aircraft without a conversion onto three axis types and without undergoing any “difference training” off his own bat. The prosecution used the lack of training entries in his log-book as evidence against him.
Under cross-examination the CAA pilot expert, very fairly, agreed that there was a “grey” area over log book entries. He agreed that it is common aviation practice for an experienced non instructor pilot to give informal instruction/type check etc to a less experienced licenced pilot. Such a flight cannot be logged by the pilot “under instruction” as an instructional flight and, if for example conducted in the experienced pilot’s aircraft ,cannot log it at all unless acting as P1. The CAA expert suggested that it should be logged as passenger flying with an explanation included in the remarks column although agreed that there was no legal basis or requirement for this to be done and this suggestion was not something set out in LASORS.
Fortunately for this pilot there was a happy outcome in that the Magistrates accepted that he had undergone proper “training” and found him not guilty. Further he was awarded a re-imbursement of his costs from central funds.