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Re: Europa-List: A question to the American "Europeans"

Subject: Re: Europa-List: A question to the American "Europeans"
From: Robert Borger <rlborger@mac.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 08:08:12
Svein, et. al.,

Big old Catch 22 over here in FAA land.  To do a proper checkout one 
must have a CFI to do the instruction.  The CFI normally will charge for 
their instruction time.  But one is not allowed to earn income through 
the use of an experimental amateur built aircraft.  So try to find a 
qualified CFI with experience in the transition aircraft who will do it 
for no charge.

I happen to have a friend who is a CFI but is not a professional flight 
instructor.  He has given me and others proper checkouts in various 
experimental amateur built aircraft for not charge.  Guys like that are 
darn few and far between over here.

Blue skies & tailwinds,
Bob Borger
Europa XS Tri, Rotax 914, Airmaster C/S Prop.
Little Toot Sport Biplane, Lycoming Thunderbolt AEIO-320 EXP
3705 Lynchburg Dr.
Corinth, TX  76208-5331
Cel: 817-992-1117
rlborger@mac.com

On Sep 17, 2012, at 2:46 AM, Sidsel & Svein Johnsen 
<sidsel.svein@oslo.online.no> wrote:

NTSB issued in May a very interesting report on accidents with 
amateur-built airplanes compared to certified airplanes, based on 
detailed evaluation of the numbers behind the summary statistics:
http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2012/SS1201.pdf

One of their findings is that many more accidents caused by loss of 
control in the air happen with amateur-built than with certified 
airplanes, and that a high percentage is with second-hand airplanes a 
short time after being purchased.   NTSB points to the fact that FAA do 
not follow the same practice as many other countries do, in that FAA do 
not require a pre-approved test flight program, nor approval of a report 
on the test flying (only a log book entry that test flight has been 
completed), which in turn may cause the pilot=92s operating 
handbook/flight manual to be lacking important airplane characteristics.

What the NTSB report do not say anything about, however, is mandatory 
transition training and check out in the specific amateur-built 
airplane.  Under the joint European pilot license regime (JAR-FCL), we 
must receive such training and have it entered in our log book.  This 
means that before we can fly the Europa we have built (unless approved 
by our CAA to perform the very first flight) we must receive such 
airplane-specific rating, and also before we may pilot another Europa 
than our own, no matter how many hours we have logged in our own plane 
and irrespective of all the similarities between two individual Europas.

Therefore the following question to the American Europeans on this 
forum:  Before you can legally be the pilot of ANY experimental classed, 
amateur-built airplane, are you not required by FAA to receive 
transition training/rating check-out by a pre-approved CFI or other 
experienced, approved person, even for flying a =93sister=94 airplane of 
the same type and model that you may already be experienced in?

Regards,
Svein
LN-SKJ


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