9. "What practical impact will the ongoing European standardisation have upon all of the above?"
Oh. Contentious topic. What about the following:
"In very short words: we don't know exactly.
Slightly longer answer: Right now, the JAR-FCL standards are enacted into law by the various countries that form the JAA. In that process, they can choose to modify the regulations slightly, and add some regulations to it. When EASA takes over, the regulations that they write become law automatically, EU-wide, with virtually no way of countries augmenting that with their own regulations.
The first aspect of this is that the regulations across Europe will be the same, will be ICAO compliant, and will most likely follow current JAR-FCL regulations closely.
The second aspect of this is that national licenses, ratings and ways of doing things will most likely disappear. For the UK, this will probably, but not surely, mean the following:
- The NPPL ... (actually, don't know about this. Stay, Go, or taken over by EASA for an EU-wide NPPL)?
- The IMC rating, as it stands now, will most likely disappear. (But see also
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=302722)
- Microlights, gliding, ballooning, homebuilding and other areas of the sport that now benefit from a lot of self-regulation under the CAA, will most likely get more regulatory oversight, both with regards to training/licensing and airworthiness/maintenance.
- The UK is currently very lenient in allowing people with foreign PPLs to fly Day VFR in a G-reg SEP(A) aircraft without further ado. This will probably not be possible anymore: people with foreign PPLs will most likely have to obtain an EASA PPL in a similar way as the FAA "piggyback" license.
- Equally, the current situation where N-reg aircraft are imported into the UK permanently, but are allowed to remain on the N-register indefinitely, will also change.
There's some good news too. There is a working group at the CAA active in proposing changes to the current theory requirements for an IR rating. The hope is that these proposals will be accepted before EASA takes over flight crew licensing, leading to a far more accessible IR rating than under the current JAR-FCL. My understanding is that the IR will have roughly the same theory requirements as the FAA IR, and this is only slightly more than the current theory requirements for the UK IMC rating."