There's a difference between 'safe' and 'legal' in many walks of life. It is legal for me to drive at 250 kph on certain German autobahns, even though at times it's not always safe. Whereas it's illegal to drive at 71 mph on a deserted UK motorway even under perfect conditions where it would be entirely safe to do so.
However, I dispute the notion that a pilot's first resort would be to the ANO. I suspect that a quick trawl through the AICs would come first.
AIC 1/2004 (pink 62) does refer to use of PEDs, but is clearly aimed more at commercial operators and the CAA needs to come up with something unequivocal which cannot be misinterpreted by the barrack room lawyers of the GA world who will try to twist them into their own interpretation.
CB radios are now 'licence exempt', as are PMR446 transceivers. Hands up all those who think this means that they may legally be used in aircraft?
Katamarino, the situations you describe are covered under the principle of force majeure.
Last edited by BEagle; 27th August 2009 at 17:25.