Before you yawn and turn over the page having been put off by yet more talk about EASA, let me assure you that the subject of this article may well affect you, personally.

As you will know EASA are now taking over all matters relating to aircraft airworthiness and maintenance from the National Aviation Authorities (NAAs). However there are a few groups of aircraft, which are listed in Annex II of regulation 1592/2002, which will, for the time being, remain under control of the NAAs. This list includes, amongst others, all amateur built aircraft, microlights, aircraft designed for military purposes only, research aircraft, and some historic aircraft.

If you are one of the lucky vintage aircraft owners who is able to operate your aircraft on a PFA administered Permit to Fly, and whose aircraft is included within Annex II then you will be able to continue to operate in exactly the same way as before, under the PFA scheme.

If however your aircraft is not listed as Annex II then your aircraft will now come under EASA control, and must be transferred to an EASA Permit to Fly. But don’t panic, read on.

Approx 12 months ago the PFA were informed by the Royal Aero Club of a forthcoming EASA working group which was being set up to re-write the rules, contained in Part 21, relating to the issue of Permits to Fly (PtF), and Restricted Certificates of Airworthiness (RCofA). Since the subject matter related to PtF it was considered that PFA would have expertise to offer, and application was made through Europe Air Sports for a PFA representative to serve on the working group. This job fell to yours truly, and I was soon launched into the world of EASA in Cologne.

You may not realise this but the arrangement that we have in the UK where certain aircraft operate permanently on a PtF is virtually unique within Europe. The usual purpose for PtF is for special or “one off” flights, such as flight testing, development, ferrying to or from a place of storage or maintenance, and ferrying damaged aircraft for repair. These PtF are issued by CAA and all of the other EU states at short notice, but are usually valid for just one or a few flights. Few of the other countries represented on the working group, realised the true nature of our UK PtF system for little aircraft. Indeed EASA were amazed at the way things happened in UK.

At this point I need to introduce the concept of “Orphan” aircraft. This is an aircraft, which no longer has continuing airworthiness support from a Type Certificate holder. This is usually because the original manufacturer has gone bust, or ceased trading, and handed the Type Certificate back to the NAA. In the UK the CAA continued to look after the orphan aircraft such as Austers, Condors etc., acting as if they were Type Certificate holders. Similarly in France the DGAC looked after Jodels etc. However under EU law the NAAs can no longer do this, and these types are therefore without any airworthiness support. Since these aircraft have no airworthiness support they cannot hold a Certificate of Airworthiness, and some other level of certification is therefore required.

One further problem exists in the UK. Here we have a few aircraft types (eg Cessna 120) where there is still a type certificate holder in place, but some years ago the CAA allowed examples of these aircraft to transfer to PtF. This situation no longer pertains, but those aircraft, which did transfer are still on PtF. Let us call these the PFA Classics for want of a better phrase.
So here we have a group of aircraft, which are either Orphans, or PFA Classics, and are non-AnnexII. All of these now come under EASA control and no one in EASA had a clue what to do with them. Before you rush off thinking this can only be a small group of aircraft, bear in mind that out of the PFA fleet of 2000 or so this group comprises 400+ aircraft.

Initially EASA were adamant that these aircraft would need to transfer to an EASA RCofA, but it was pointed out that this would require them to be maintained under the remit of Part M and all spare parts used would need release notes (EASA form 1). Since no approved spares are available for most of these aircraft this would be impossible. The only option then was to permanently ground them. You must be joking ! No I am not !

Since this solution was clearly unacceptable we proposed that the aircraft should continue on an EASA PtF. This solution was strongly supported by the CAA representative (who fortunately was Chairman of the working group) and a special category of aircraft, eligible for PtF was created to suit this purpose. Further negotiations resulted in these aircraft being allowed to hold a non-expiring PtF, which removed the need to re-apply for a PtF each year.

The results of all of the hard work by the group were sent out for public consultation in June 2006 and then all of the responses (a total of 235) were reviewed during two three-day meetings at EASA HQ in Cologne. The resulting rule changes are now available for inspection via the EASA web site, and will now be sent for ratification by the European Council before becoming law.

So where does all of this lot leave the owners of those 400+ aircraft. These aircraft will now need to be transferred over to EASA PtF, probably over a period of a year or so, as and when the PtF comes up for renewal. PFA now have a huge task ahead to manage the transfer to EASA PtF in co-ordination with CAA. CAA and PFA are currently developing the exact mechanism for the transfer and I cannot therefore explain precisely how this will happen. However as we understand it the intention is to finish up with a system where the maintenance regime and permit renewal regime will remain as it is, the only change will be that you will have an EASA PtF (but still issued by CAA) instead of a CAA PtF.

One area where we presently fear there may be a bit of a hiccup is that the design evaluation of modifications and repair schemes may need to be approved by EASA, rather than through PFA, but this remains to be defined. I will report on these points once they are fully defined in the near future.

So after a years bloody hard work, including seven meetings in Cologne, by all of the members of the group including PFA we have finished up with, amongst other things, a workable transfer onto the EASA system, with no loss of privileges, for operators of Vintage and Classic aircraft.

My thanks go to all of the members of the working group for their understanding and forbearance, to the PFA professional staff for their support work, and to Europe Air Sports.

Keep those Vintage and Classic aircraft flying.

Barry Plumb