N-Reg, PPL, IR and UK - advice needed

[echobeach]

I have always had such helpful advice from PPRuNe that I wonder if Isomeone can help with this.

I have looked into the archives, researched and thought hard about this but I am really not sure still of the exact position and wish to know before making decision.

I now have a PPL, with SEP, MEP and IMC ratings. I wish to do the JAA IR next, and the plan is then to fly well equipped twin. This is mainly to keep Mrs Echobeach interested in the hobby, on the promise of some practical use from all this effort.

An offer is available for a twin but the craft is N-reg and now I am not clear how I stand with next steps.

I understand that I can apply for an FAA PPL on the basis of JAA-PPL. Exactly how I do this I am not clear, though I have a link from a previous thread. I believe this can all be done in the UK ?

If however I now do the JAA-IR can I fly the N-Reg IFR in Europe or should I do the FAA-IR. I would rather do the IR here as it although I know ground school and hours more challenging, I would prefer to do this.

I don’t want to find that I can t use the IR capability of the craft though without the US ratings. I realize that EASA may mean the certainty of the N-Reg in Europe is not clear.

I am sure someone here knows the answer.

[On the Spot]

The FAA IR is needed to fly N-reg IFR but it is much less expensive and onerous to obtain (cheaper flying, landings, examiners fees etc.). Basically 40 hrs IFR flying inc 15 hrs instruction and some ground school. (you get credit for past IFR time including from the PPL syllabus. It also gives you an IMC on the back of it so that you can keep Mrs Echobeach happy around non airways UK airspace, at least and until EASA kills that (or both) off.
You can get a foreign pilot cert on the basis of your JAR PPL or simply do the minimal instruction and check ride for a standalone FAA PPL.
You don't need the hearing test that is required in UK at least.
You do need 40 hours of cross country time and that in FAA land means more than 50nM.
I have seen a post on here where it was suggested that an ICAO compliant IR (FAA) could be used to fly IFR on G-Reg. But I can't yet verify that that is true and if it is why it would not work in reverse (though there would not be much of a queue)
The JAR IR requires you to do a considerable amount of groundschool (as much as 850 hrs dependent upon your start point) and costs a lot more (groundschool costs, aircraft landings and examiners fees several magnitudes greater than the US etc.).
Unless you have longer term plans why bother and why shell out the additional cash ?
Good luck either way

[S-Works]

The JAR IR requires you to do a considerable amount of groundschool (as much as 850 hrs dependent upon your start point) and costs a lot more (groundschool costs, aircraft landings and examiners fees several magnitudes greater than the US etc.).

The JAA IR is 200hrs of self study ground school and 2 days of classroom attendance. It is easy enough to do, you just need to get into the groove of study. Yes it is more expensive than the USA, but you are doing things on your own turf and for many of us that was worth the effort.

Once you have a JAA IR you can then do a foreign instrument written test somewhere like Farnborough and add it to your piggy back FAA licence. This will allow you to fly the N reg.

Under current proposals from EASA operators of N Reg aircraft based in EASA jurisdiction will be required to be dual licensed. If this happens or not remains to be seen, but the route mentioned above fits in with your desire to go the JAA route and have N reg privileges.

[On the Spot]

I have been looking at the ATPL requirements for too long
Thanks for the correction Bose x

[echobeach]

Very helpful advice. My reasons for doing the JAA-IR here was that this was where I will be flying and I must say I like the challenge.

I have not wanted to the IR until I had access to a craft that made it worth the effort but as this now seems possible, now is the time.

If it is possible to do JAA IR and then something simple to fly N Reg this is the way I would like to go. Didnt want to find I have done the wrong IR and cant fly N reg IFR in Europe. Thought JAA IR may be advantage anyway when the craft have to come off the N register in a few years

Thanks

[gyrotyro]

"Thought JAA IR may be advantage anyway when the craft have to come off the N register in a few years "

echo....

Where, and at what date does it state that N reg a/c will have to come off the register ?

I know it's a rumour network but let's not be alarmist, look what happened to the banking and finance situation !

[echobeach]

like all flight planning just preparing for all options. The picture seems unclear but i have read that this was a possibility.

[S-Works]

gyrotyro, The current proposal is not to force people to leave the N Reg but to gain oversight of them. This means bringing them under EASA oversight for maintenance and the worst bit for many is parallel licensing. This means if you are flying an N Reg and have an IR and wish to continue to do so you will need a European IR to continue to fly in European air space.

It seems they are giving up attacking the N reg directly and just making the requirement onerous. This will mainly effect the small guys who have chosen to go the FAA IR for various reasons but I do know of quite a few N reg commercial guys that will be stuffed as they don't meet the strict medical requirements for EASA.

I have the document in front of me and will try and find the link. It is important that people put a response together to try and prevent this.

I know the nay sayer will come along any minute now (usually those with only FAA IR) and say it will never happen as they have been told by the Head of Policy at EASA's teaboys cat but do not underestimate the determination of the bureaucrats to push through pointless laws in the name of safety oversight.

[IO540]

Echobeach - you have a PM with references etc.

There is enough meat in the GA rumour mill to enable someone to get a PhD on the back of a case study (always a popular way to do a PhD) on the psychology here.

The threat to the foreign reg (in the main, N-reg although bigger iron tends to also be on the Cayman etc registers) has been there over decades and far longer than I have been flying.

GA has many people who have worked for X hours towards a qualification Y and it is human nature to despise those tho have got Y with less than X. I see this in my business (electronics) where some company has developed a product to meet some EU requirement, and then the requirement is relaxed, or exemptions appear, and other can take advantage of those, and the company them starts putting out press releases all over the place (and directly lobbying the EU) saying how this is "unfair" etc etc. The axe grinders can always be spotted from miles away.

In aviation, the test is SAFETY and there is NO data showing foreign reg planes are less safe. Studies have been specially commissioned to dig out such data (e.g. the DfT asked the CAA to dig some out, a few years ago) but all were unsuccessful.

The threat has varied over recent years. The French tried to put a long term parking limit on N-reg c. 2004 but dropped it fast, amid industry and other protests.

The Brits tried the same in 2005, with a 90-day long term parking ban, and dropped it likewise.

Forgetting rumours, the current threat picture comprises of this (http://www.easa.europa.eu/ws_prod/r/doc/NPA/NPA%202008-17b.pdf) proposal (see pages 159-161). In brief, this strips EU resident (the term is not defined - various precedents include residence for tax purposes for example) pilots of foreign license privileges while in EU airspace.

If you think this is aggressive, well it is. It would wipe out most of the light jet scene in Europe, and is therefore impossible to achieve as it stands, on obvious political grounds. EASA's "grand plan" is to eventually sign treaties with other countries (the USA, notably) for mutual acceptance or validation of licenses. This proposal is aggressive, to bring the other countries to the table.

The basic problem with all this regulation is that under ICAO if you have a license/rating and a plane all from the came country, you have worldwide privileges and no civilised country can mess with that. The previous proposals, and this latest one too, all suffer from the unavoidable problem that no matter what is done locally, "genuine foreigners" will always be able to come into Europe and fly as per their ICAO privileges! But, on any of these proposals, the locals cannot. The result is a weird aviation scene with a lot of unenforceable but effective work-arounds e.g. firing your jet crew and replacing them with ones who are not EU resident... If EASA owned the whole world things would be very different but it owns only a little tiny bit of it.

There is another proposal in the pipeline, applicable to foreign airframes, whose contents is currently unknown. It is due out in the next few weeks.

However, while it is possible for EASA to attack European citizens without breaching ICAO (because ICAO allows a State to prevents its own citizens from exercising the privileges of a foreign license in its airspace) an attack against airframes is much more difficult because it would need to work on some kind of long term parking limit and this is a tough one, for several reasons, one being that the maintenance business would be all but wiped out because no owner will use up his long term parking entitlement by having the plane sitting in a hangar in the EU having its Annual!

I recommend two things:

1) Draw the attention of any high-end aircraft owner to the above URL for the EASA FCL proposal and encourage any interested party to make their representations on the form provided. There are sure to be many thousands doing this, but the really useful ones will be those made at the higher political levels - as always.

2) Do not do any action pro-actively in reaction to this proposal. It is much too early.

For example, under the old long term parking proposals, some owners went from N-reg back to G-reg which cost them thousands and stripped them of IFR privileges. They did this out of pure fear. This is plain stupid. These proposals change all the time and, as I said, the end objective is a treaty with the USA. EASA does not actually want to kill the light/corporate jet scene!! The threat picture will clarify over the next few years and one should do nothing in the meantime.

I would recommend obtaining any cheap insurances; for example avoid doing mods to your plane which would have to be expensively ripped out under EASA. A backup oil pressure gauge might cost £5000 to recertify under EASA but this is not the end of the world, and it could be a lot less, and it may be possible to placard it INOP (a traditional solution which the CAA did on my TB20 because they didn't like the prop TKS)... And a registry transfer may be completely unnecessary in the end! Getting the CAA Class 1 medical is another good one; the initial only costs £300 now and provided you renew every 5 years or less it locks you into Demonstrated Ability for life, which could one day be priceless, and it will certainly be good enough for any future IR requirements. But the Class 2 won't be because of e.g. the audiogram requirement. Think long term!

[S-Works]

The axe grinders can always be spotted from miles away.

Indeed....

[Pace]

10540

>"genuine foreigners" will always be able to come into Europe and fly as per their ICAO privileges! But, on any of these proposals, the locals cannot. The result is a weird aviation scene with a lot of unenforceable but effective work-arounds e.g. firing your jet crew and replacing them with ones who are not EU resident... If EASA owned the whole world things would be very different but it owns only a little tiny bit of it.<


There are many pilots who fly N reg for a living who would recompense them for their loss of job or earnings?

The above would smack of prejudice and surely would not stand a case scrutiny in the courts of human rights?

Pace

[Fuji Abound]

The axe grinders can always be spotted from miles away.

The trouble is I am not sure they can always be spotted.

There seem to be a great many people in aviation with axes to grind and when they do, they often seem capable of introducing legislation without adequate debate, without regulatory impact asessment but with a spectacular ability to reduce, not improve safety.

We desperately need organisations like AOPA to fight our cause.

[Pace]

Fuji

That is the reason that especially the UK is in such a mess. All the generated wealth is from the City financial markets and then bleeding down into the leisure industries but nothing real or solid.
Look what has happened with the collapse of the financial institutes. We are left with huge taxes, huge costs and now nothing coming in to pay for it all

On top of that this uk government which is hell bent on creating its big brother state created masses of un productive jobs as rule makers to recreate a burocratic regulated big brother society. Who is expected to pay for all these unproductive waste of space jobs and this uneeded and expensive governement created monster.

I am sure they spend all week trying to justify their unproductive jobs by finding more and more things to interfere with.

There is NO sense. Not long ago some **** decided that pilots should have invasive heart tests which carried a 3% risk of death in the procedure :ugh:
Thankfully it was thrown out but where do these idiots come from?

Just as one set of proposed new regulations are fought there are an army of regulators hell bent on chucking in a mass of equally stupid new ones. Madness the lot!

Pace

[IO540]

The trouble is I am not sure they can always be spotted.I think they can, but they are not always grinding the same axe.

There is a large body of self proclaimed aviation elite in this country, and no doubt elsewhere, who view foreign-paperwork operations with distaste. Fair enough, I can see their point (but don't agree with it). Aviation is not like cars, where driving on a foreign plate gets you off all parking and speeding camera tickets etc - in fact almost everything short of killing somebody - so a limit on residence makes sense.

Only yesterday, one UK former instructor of mine was taking the micky out of my "FAA" CPL/IR. In a friendly way but all too common. I had spent a bigger chunk of my life on getting that piece of paper than on anything else since doing a university engineering degree many years previously, and contrary to popular folklore being on the N-reg does not save any maintenance. The reality is that he himself only had a CPL/IR, until he managed to clock up 1500hrs etc, almost entirely at his students' expense, and he had been in this game for so many years previously he had worked up on the back of so many grandfather routes. In his days, the CPL/IR was a piece of cake (for any aircraft owner who flies a lot) compared to today's, with the self improver routes etc.

But I don't think that most of the top regulators are motivated by this simple prejudice. Most of them are not, and never have been, pilots. A few have or have had a PPL at some stage, so have a notion of what a Cessna looks like. These people are full time committee animals who live for the generation of rules. The concept of eliminating rules is completely off their horizon. Their whole life is about creating new ones. Quite a few, especially in Eurocontrol, are former ATCOs, and I cannot think of a more rule-bound profession. I've met a fair number of Eurocontrol people and most seem to be working in some bunker deep underground.

The EU concept in particular comes with a raft of religious symbology which is a fertile ground for rulemaking. The current EASA position on foreign stuff is "reciprocity". They are happy to sign a treaty (a TREATY - everything in Europe must be a TREATY) with [non-EU] country X for mutual recognition of everything.

If X is some non-entity, they will probably sign happily; their small-town politicians will just love the Brussels treatment - it's a great jolly on expenses.

If however X is the USA, it gets harder because the USA has its own agenda. They only look after some 90% of the world's aviation, directly or indirectly, and it is self evident that their way does work. The USA has also for years had its own treaties and understandings and relationships with many of the individual EU members (including the UK) and doesn't exactly like EASA coming in and saying "WE now represent all these countries". EASA could easily be perceived as the school bully who rules the playground and claims to represent a whole bunch of kids. The EU concept is also a poor fit with the American way of looking at individual rights.

I am sure it will all be resolved in due course, because nobody actually wants to go for the nuclear option, but we are in for a few turbulent years and a great deal of rumour of impending doom.

[echobeach]

Very helpful comments.

It seems from all this that getting the JAA IR is the way to go but will (obviously) take me a while to do this. If I fly the N reg on a FAA ppl that I get on the basis of the JAA PPL or by a flight test can I fly the craft in the UK in IMC using the IMC rating or does this mean that I fly an N reg craft I cant fly it in IMC at all in UK until having an IR.

Is it possible to do the IR in the plane that I intend to continue flying if this is an N reg. I assume not as the examining will be done by the CAA.

I presume as the IMC rating is UK only that this cant be used in an N reg craft that I am flying on an FAA lisence.
Or is it possible to fly the plane in the UK on the JAA PPL and thus use the IMC rating part of this.

[Lasiorhinus]

I think he meant:

If I fly an N-registered aircraft on a FAA Private Certificate - either one issued on the basis of a JAA PPL or a standalone one issued by passing a flight test - can I then fly this aircraft in UK airspace in IMC using the UK-issued IMC rating? Or does this mean that I cannot fly N-registered aircraft in IMC at all in the UK without an Instrument Rating?


Here are some punctuation marks. Feel free to keep them, for next time.

..........................
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
-------
???????

[IO540]

It seems from all this that getting the JAA IR is the way to go but will (obviously) take me a while to do this. If I fly the N reg on a FAA ppl that I get on the basis of the JAA PPL or by a flight test can I fly the craft in the UK in IMC using the IMC rating or does this mean that I fly an N reg craft I cant fly it in IMC at all in UK until having an IR.

Is it possible to do the IR in the plane that I intend to continue flying if this is an N reg. I assume not as the examining will be done by the CAA.

I presume as the IMC rating is UK only that this cant be used in an N reg craft that I am flying on an FAA lisence.
Or is it possible to fly the plane in the UK on the JAA PPL and thus use the IMC rating part of this.If I understand the above correctly:

If you need an IR for a G-reg now then obviously you need to do the JAA IR.

You can fly an N-reg under IFR on the IMC Rating - I have this in writing from the FAA, and the CAA also confirmed in writing it is not limited by aircraft reg. As per the ANO, the IFR privileges of the IMCR are limited to UK airspace only. However the removal of the need to be in sight of surface for VFR is valid worldwide.

A JAA PPL in an N-reg is still valid only in the country which issued it (ref: FAR 61.3). So to fly an N-reg in the UK you need a UK issued PPL. To fly an N-reg in Germany you need a German issued PPL. There is a different body of opinion here also, and some FAA replied suggestion otherwise, but the wording of the FARs as as I have put it here. JAA licenses work using mutual validation; they are still issued only in the one country.

Agree about the punctuation :)

[scooter boy]

There are axe-grinders in so many professions - some motivated by power , some by money. My profession, plastic surgery is no exception. The basic problem with these people is usually envy, envy that you might be doing better than them or that you may have ascended the greasy pole to success more rapidly, that your wife might be prettier and your house bigger etc... these people will always exist. Suffice it to say that the axe grinders generally suffer more through their vitriol than those that it is aimed at, envy is a poor bedfellow at the best of times.

I am proud to be British and love living in Europe. I love flying fast and far around the EU at 190kts in my Mooney Ovation GX. But it is on the N-register simply because there is no straightforward european route allowing me to use the aircraft in the all to frequent poor weather we get here!

Until there is an equivalent european alternative my aircraft along with thousands of others will stay on the N-reg, and my license will be an FAA/IR simple as that. The regulators will continue to threaten but I will only consider my position when the writing is on the wall - which it absolutely is not at the present time.

To those who have spent the extra time and money doing the EU exams - congratulations. I have chosen a different route and I am perfectly happy with it. It is a legally robust route for the present and long may continue to be so.

Happy flying.

SB

[echobeach]

thanks for all the advice. Bit harsh though regarding my punctation. I wrote that at 5 am on the way to egll. This reply from my mobile so please forgive any more errors. Vincit qui patitur.

[IO540]

Vincit qui patitur.

I think you are seriously over-estimating the intelligence here :)

I had to google for that one.

[echobeach]

i think this comment is particularly relevant to the whole business of flying. At least my latin teacher wil be happy, even if as has been pointed out, my english one is less than impressed.

[Lasiorhinus]

Apologies if you took my re-writing your paragraph too harshly.

It took me a few tries to read it, just to understand what it was you were asking. The written word does not benefit from pauses, inflection, and tone of voice, so to properly read your question, and then hope someone could answer it, I put in some typographical edits.

Festina lente :ok:

[Fright Level]

If you get the JAA IR, you can add this to your US license simply by sitting a 50 question "Foreign Pilot IR" written. 70% pass and a visit to the local FSDO will get it added to your FAA ticket. No need to do anymore flying.

[IO540]

True but you need an FAA PPL too. This can be a piggyback or standalone. Piggybacks are nowadays a right PITA because of the need to visit the USA (generally). So one also needs to spend a couple of days doing a standalone FAA PPL.

[S-Works]

So one also needs to spend a couple of days doing a standalone FAA PPL.

One does need not to do a standalone PPL. In fact as I understand it you can't add a foreign instrument test passed to a full PPL, you have to do an FAA IR.

For those with a JAA IR who just want the foreign instrument privilege you get a piggy back and take the FIP test.

We have to accept the fact that if you want to fly on another countries register and rules outside of that nation you are going to be faced with an element of inconvenience. If you don't like the inconvenience you operate under your own national regime.

[scooter boy]

"if you want to fly on another countries register and rules outside of that nation you are going to be faced with an element of inconvenience. If you don't like the inconvenience you operate under your own national regime."

Quite so Bose, however it really is a case of weighing up the relative inconvenience of obtaining, maintaining and using the European IR versus the US one. As far as I am concerned the US route wins hands down in the convenience stakes - it is just so much more user-friendly.

SB

[S-Works]

Quite so Bose, however it really is a case of weighing up the relative inconvenience of obtaining, maintaining and using the European IR versus the US one. As far as I am concerned the US route wins hands down in the convenience stakes - it is just so much more user-friendly.

Indeed SB. That was not being opened for debate. I merely stated a fact.
:)

[collectivefriction]

Getting a JAA/IR is much less onerous than it seems - although I have not quite finished mine yet :).

When we initially started looking at the groundschool options most seemed to be of the opinion that we would need to join in with the ATPLers and do 2/3 weeks G/S - the requirement from the CAA is 10% of the theory portion of a distance learning course. Not sure how they get to the fuigure but LASORS has this at 200 hours so you need to do just 21/2 days in a classroom.

CATS at Cranfield were extremely helpful here and put on some Saturday classes so us busy business men did not need to give up too much time attending - this made a big difference to me.

The exams are pretty straight forward and out of the 30 or so of us who started most have sat about half of the exams (with a few of us having sat all of them) and I think there have only been two exams failed (and passed at resit) with quite a few of us passing all 7 exams on the minimum 2 days.

The flying side is of course fun and I am finding the guys at Wycombe very helpful. Again I am flying at weekends only and have managed to rack up about 35 hours in a/c and sim. I know a few who have started at Bournemouth and their feedback is also good.

As far as I can see (personal perspective) the ONLY downside to doing the JAA is the cost and by exptension the time. These are:

Groundschool £1K (we had a considerable discount by organising a large group of us)
exams at gatwick £70 each (plus hotel bills and probably a too large bar bill considering I had up tp 4 exams the next day)
Flying - mixture of 20 hours sim and 30 in a cesspit - might work out at about £11K - with some luck:)

It is relatively straight forward and pricy - buit a better option for me than taking time off to go to the states.

[echobeach]

Collective friction
I am planning to do the ground school with CATS and then probably MEIR with Billins at cranfield where I did the multi and really enjoyed the experience. In fact it was because I enjoyed the teaching and the flying of the twin there that made me think that the effort to get the IR done was worthwhile. In fact the instruction and honing of schools I had with the multi was such a challenge and fun that it was this that made me think the IR could be looked on as an enjoyable way to fly for a while.
I am not sure if there is a small group that that CATS will be happy teaching at weekends but will ask, and very helpful to know they have done this for you.
I agree that it is easier for me to study more and fly more hours that to take any time off to go to US.
How long did it take you to finish off the ground school before the flying started? It is made out to be the most arduous course but to be honest I actually really enjoyed all the studying for PPL, IMC and ME and I cant believe the IR ground school is as impossible as is made out. My day job has involved a life time of study and exams so I am used to the idea. I accept I may be proven wrong on this one, bt encouraged by your comments.

[S-Works]

The JAA exams are easy if a little bulky. They are generally made out to be impossible by either those who have done them and wish to be seen as sky gods or by those looking for a curve in a 100 mile straight road and always looking for the 'easy route'.

CATS are a flexible organisation with a good standard of material although prepare for a little frustration as the management can be a little air brained at times but overall the experience will be a good one.

They are certainly better geared for the private IR where the other big names are only intent on the sausage machine of ATPL candidates.

[collectivefriction]

I found the ground school pretty straight forward. Passed all of the exams first time around (sat 3 on one day in april and the remaining four on one day on June). The CATS in line stuff is OK, but not up to the standard of say OAT, but its good enough. You have an option of purchasing the manuals (I got given a set and they never got opened). The only thing I would recommend buy as an extra is the OAT Met CD.

The CATS question bank pretty accurately reflected the questions in the exam and were very useful in judging whether you had done enough prio to sitting an exam. The weekend groundschools were great value and very well presented by a knowledgeable tutor.

If you want it spoon fed then go somewhere else, if you have a bit of nouse and want some flexibility then I think CATS get about 9 out of 10.

Give Stuart a call and discuss the weekend bit - although it might seem obvious to us lot but when I went to see him to jack up the course for the 30 of us who started, it was clear that they had never really thought about IR studying for businessmen. they seem to have caught on now and made a tidy sum for a little additional weekend work - works for them works for us.

For weekend IR training I have found Wycombe Aic Centre excellent - started July and now 40 hours into it.