EASA permit woes
A friend of mine, definitely not me because my aircraft's on an LAA permit, bought an aircraft about 5 years ago on an EASA permit. Perhaps he didn't realise or couldn't foresee just how costly his decision would be. He doesn't fly more than a handful of hours each year because his work keeps him very busy, so we his friends estimate that each hour must be costing hundreds.
We all fly from a very northern airfield and there is only one engineer in over 100 miles willing to look after an EASA permit aircraft and as I understand things, the engineer must pay a hefty annual fee to the CAA for each EASA permit type which he services. Naturally my friend has to pay for this, apart from all the hourly costs for that engineer's expertise.
The costs of keeping an EASA permit aircraft in the air seem to be little different from those of a certified aircraft, particularly and understandably as my friend isn't allowed by the engineer to do almost anything himself. As an example his aircraft's now due for a 5 yearly fuel, oil and water hose change, which is something I'm presently doing myself on my LAA type with the agreement of my LAA inspector, who'll check over my work and sign if he's satisfied.
The EASA licensed engineer has estimated several weeks for the hose changeover, which may be fair enough if he can only work on weekends for example, but I will complete all of my hoses in about a week and perhaps as many as 30 man hours. The final bill for my friend is likely to be comfortably into four figures.
Apparently there are also items other than hoses which have a calendar life and which are changed regardless of the clear evidence on inspection of being in perfect condition, mainly because they've hardly been used. This is pure "certified world" practice.
Apart from selling his aircraft at less than half the over £100k which he paid for it, is there any other escape from this EASA permit nightmare? Is there any likelihood of the LAA adopting such aircraft onto their orphans list?
Last edited by Colibri49; 16th Feb 2017 at 23:28.