Originally Posted by
Rod1
“You can take any PtF aeroplane to the CAA,”
That is a very interesting statement. 18 months ago I was doing a comparison of costs. Brian had told me that the CAA could take on any LAA PtoF aircraft. I contacted the CAA to find out how much it would cost to put my MCR on the CAA. After trying quite hard I was told that some LAA aircraft could transfer, but not mine, and that my only option was the LAA. Further research showed that a letter may exist within LAA HQ that throws further light on the situation. Despite further efforts, I could not get hold of the letter or find out who from the CAA wrote it. I posted my results and was contacted by several other people who had attempted the same thing and got the same result, one of whom was a very experienced engineer who regularly negotiated with the CAA in this day job and had many contacts.
If anybody knows anything, which could further my research in this area, I would be happy to take it further, but based on my own attempts, and others, I have to say that the CAA is not an option.
This is not intended in any way to be a criticism of the LAA, who off course have no control over the CAA.
Rod1
Interesting - looking at CAP733 it indeed says nothing about this.
I'm guessing that the view being taken is that they (CAA) don't want to see the management of any type split - so you can either take all MCRs to CAA, or keep all MCRs with LAA; much the same that you can't split a type between BMAA and LAA (although variants are - so for example some MW5s are LAA aeroplanes, and some are BMAA aeroplanes, but all MW5(K)s are BMAA, whilst all MW5Ds are LAA).
I have to say, having had significant professional dealings with all three, for a private recreational aeroplane, CAA is the last organisation I'd want to deal with directly.
On the other hand, if I was developing a fairly radical new prototype, I might well stick with CAA, who have phenomenal technical and human resources if you really need that. Horses for courses.
G