Use of FAA, JAA licences, and N reg aircraft
 

I am trying to work out if this works:

FAA 'piggyback' licence to allow me to fly N registered aeroplane
JAA licence to allow me to fly anywhere in EU

That my JAA currency maintains my 'piggyback' licence currency without need for the FAA biennial, notwithstanding the fact I am in a US aircraft?

Make sense to anyone? Thanks for any advice!

Sam.

That's not correct. Your JAA currency has no bearing on the FAA one. You need the FAA biennial like any other FAA pilot (piggy back or not). It's possible to have lost currency on your JAA one, and still hold it on your FAA one too.

When you get your piggy back FAA licence, you need to do a BFR before you can fly solo too.

dp

Correct.

Not correct for an N-reg. FAR 61.3 allows an N-reg to be flown in any non-US airspace provided the pilot has a license issued by that country. JAA licenses are still issued by one country; they are validated by the other JAA member states. So to fly an N-reg in say Germany you would need a German issued PPL. This is a grey area (and the FAA have expressed both views on different occassions) but this is the literal interpretation.

Correct, I think.

Make sense to anyone? Thanks for any advice!

Thanks for both of those, but not sure about the last part of IO540's post.

Once the FAA biennial is done correctly (thanks for that), surely you can then fly FAA licence, N registration anywhere in the world? The only other possible consideration could be the possible requirement for an FAA medical (hopefully avoided by using JAR medical)?

At the end of the day, there are a LOT of FAA pilots, flying N registered aircraft, all over the world!

Sam.

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Hmm, what, eh?

I didn't read that FAR stuff either :)

You don't need an FAA medical for a piggyback PPL.

There is a slight grey area, never clarified AFAIK, around the wording of the FARs in whether you need an FAA medical for an FAA IR with a piggyback FAA PPL.

You do need an FAA medical for a standalone FAA PPL, CPL or ATPL.

IO,

If we are talking 90 day currency for the carrage of passengers then yes, I agree; the JAA currency also counts as FAA currency. ie. it doesn't matter which licence you were relying on when making your three landings.

But the poster specifically mentioned the FAA Biennial, and as such we very much disagree. Every FAA licence holder must have a Biennial in the previous two years to fly. It doesn't matter whether the FAA licence is a standalone one, or the piggy back one based on a foreign licence....both need to do FAA Biennials. This is been confirmed to me by two different FSDO's, and a number of times during my study for the Flight Review, and if I remember correctly is mentioned on the documentation that comes with the piggy back licence.

dp

I am happy to be corrected. Piggyback licenses are not my area, and in fact I would never recommend anybody doing one because it then depends on several things all remaining valid.

It's a very minor point, but if you want to fly with passengers at night then the FAA requires three night landings in the last 90 days, while JAA only requires one out of the three to be at night.

And they each need to be to a full stop and in proper night (i.e. 1 hr after sunset to 1 hr before sunrise).

As a summary

For a standalone FAA and JAA licence you must have
BFR within the past two years (FAA CFI)
CofE or CofT review within the past 24 months (JAA CFI)
An FAA medical
A JAA medical

For a piggyback issue you can use the medical from the same country as the licence on which your FAA is piggybacked.

As IO says, it is not clear what happens when you then add new ratings (like the IR) rather than convert say a JAA IR to an FAA along with the basic piggyback.

FAA licence allows you to fly Nreg anywhere

N-reg can also be flown in a country by a pilot with a valid licence of THAT country and a valid medical of That country. (Note just because licences are JAA does not make France and the UK the same country as far as the FAA is concerned)

There is an accident report of an N reg Kingair in Ireland (AAIU site) that shows how you can end up not being legal for the flight by getting the wrong combination of paper from different states.

FAA Piggyback PPL
 

Just had mine issued in November. Asked the man at FAA a number of questions, some of them prompted by earlier discussions here.

Our survey said:

FAA Piggyback does NOT require BFR.
FAA Piggyback does NOT require FAA medical.
Cannot fly at night unless Night rating gained on UK/JAA licence.
FAA Piggyback allows you to fly 'N' reg aircraft anywhere, restricted by your rating and limitations.
FAA Piggyback only valid if supporting licence valid, including medical, and I quote;
"Issued on basis of and valid only when accompanied by United Kingdom pilots licence number(s) XX/XX/XXXXXXX/X
and
"All limitations and restrictions on the United Kingdom pilot licence apply".
Interesting to note that the FAA consider my JAA licence to be British, not European.

camlobe

Unfortunately, verbal advice from FAA representatives has been demonstrated to be in error before.

In one of the previous discussions on this point here, the relevant FAR (61.56) was found and quoted - you do need a BFR to exercise your "piggyback" FAA certificate.


SoCal App from these fora, if he's still around, has an excellent handle on all of this and also an apparently close understanding of how the FAA FSDOs deal with it in practice. Might be worth a PM to him if the above doesn't convince.

Edited to say that I'd forgotten 'til I reviewed it that in the thread above, Arrowflyer quotes a letter, "approved by the FAA's Office of Chief Counsel" which explicitly states that a BFR is required. So, no question about it.

Well, your license is issued and validated by the UK CAA, so if that's what the Americans put on the piggyback license, I don't think that would be incorrect.

In general I find Americans have a bit of trouble grasping the political situation over here anyway. Obviously you've got the helpless "Holland is the capital of Amsterdam, right" types, but even the more enlightened ones have trouble separating:

- geographical Europe
- the European Union
- the Eurozone
- the Schengen area
- NATO

In addition to that, for me, it's hard enough to explain the difference between Holland and the Netherlands, and the fact that our capital is not the seat of the government. I can imagine how hard it must be for someone from across the channel to explain the difference between:
- The Commonwealth
- The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- England, Wales, Schotland
- Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Pitcairn Island

...and what about my requirement for a 'Passport to Pimlico'? (you younger ones will have to Google that one!)

Sorry, hat, coat, door. Cabin fever due lousy wx

TheOddOne

True.

However, the simple fact that a European licence issued by the political subdivision of France has different rules and restrictions that one from the UK and the fact that the aviation laws are materially different in each of the political subdivision of The State of Europe may cause the FAA to view each of these lesser entities as a separate State (ie. country), not withstanding the fact they are all part of a single state ;).

This one is going to join the well worn aviation sleeping dogs list:

Night flight in the UK on an FAA PPL (without an IR)
FAA medical for a piggyback FAA PPL (with an IR)
Can't think of any more off hand...

:)

These are never likely to be settled.

That's before one gets onto stuff which is a grey area even within the USA, like whether a "flight" with 3 landings needs to be done on the same day.....

You do need a BFR that is for sure. I got into trouble for not having one when I sat my FAA IR checkride (which was added to piggyback licence - I had FAA medical which the examiner wanted to see).

madness....
 

Why the hell cant we have just one global standard that says this person is physically fit and is capable of flying anywhere in the world.

So long as it is issued following an identical course of training to an identical standard it really wouldnt matter who signed it off woult it EASA FAA CAA JPL REPUBLIC OF CHINA OR WHO EVER? I dont understand if an Americal pilot can overfly all the continent of Europe at 35,000 ft, Why he or any other nationality pilot , has to have a different one for flying out of any of the countries he just flew over?

To a simpleton like me , it sounds from all the gobbledy gook here , that if you have to have licences for the coutry you are operating in, why do pilots not have to have 30 odd different ones to land away and then fly out of all the places they routinely fly to commercially?
If you are fit and capable fo flying a 747 400 OR PA34 yOU CAN FLY THE THING SO WHY NEED A SPECIAL LICENCE TO DO IT AN ANY OTHER COUNTRY:ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:. There is bound to be a 132 page document somewhere that explains why it isnt done but isnt it about time it was?
Then all pilots everywhere would fly to the same standard for a given class and set of conditions?
:hmm:
Can you imagine of all the Formula one drivers had to pass a racing test for each country they race in and re do a currency test for wet days and dry days and cold days or windy days ...? Or each Soldier had to pass a medical for each country they operate in and undergo firearms training in each country they visit... Madness....... Well wouldnt want our troops trained in American ways so scratch that last comment .....

Because different countries have different views of what is safe and what they want their pilots to know. As we have seen from the traumas of JAA and EASA, just getting agreement among a few European regulators and their respective pilot groupings is a big enough struggle.
He doesn't. This whole thread is about the process of one State issuing a licence based on another State's licence.