FAA to cancel all US-registrations

[Deleted]

They are going to re-register all aircraft over the next three years and owners will have to renew their aircraft registrations every three years after the initial re-registering.

Happy Days

Bob

[ronturner]

The re-registration exercise has been explained.

I would like to add to the thread. How many people know that there are thousands of N reg aircraft which may be grounded in the next two years? Over the last 10 years, owners and pilots have opted for the American system of crew licensing and aircraft registration as a cheaper way of operating. (From Citations to Cirrus...all makes and sizes.) The American systems are less bureaucratic and not less safe. In fact there is evidence that by any measure you care to mention, N reg aircraft are the safest in the world. The FAA keep records of everything going back years. With the possible exception of our own CAA, most European authorities have no stats on the myriad of safety features recorded by the FAA.
We now have an organisation called EASA. (European Aviation Safety Authority) which is taking over all the work of national organisations. (Such as the CAA.) However national organisations are not being disbanded. They have to implement what EASA says, so we have two management layers to pay for instead of one.
Easa have no statistics on which to base their decisions. They have political masters (The EU commission) which wants things done a certain way. Therefore EASA, which is supposed to be about safety is implementing rules in ways which cannot be proven to be safer. For example, most private pilots and/or owners like myself are faced with higher costs at every stage of our flying. There is only so much money in the biscuit tin, so the more I give to management the less I can afford to fly. Everybody knows that one of the ways to avoid accidents is to be current and have as much experience as possible.
Now enter the pollutions again. As part of the Peeing contest with Airbus/Boeing, Eu pollutions want to ban the basing of all N reg aircraft in Europe, to ban the flying in IMC of pilots with American instrument ratings and to effectively make having a US license not worth the paper it is written on. This is purly a political issue. Not a safety one.

Needless to say the GA community are fighting these proposals, but it has been a battle for some years which we appear to be losing. It looks as if all those N reg executive types which we see at Speke frequently will soon be a thing of the past. Some will convert to "G", but many will just pack up and go home leaving jobless pilots, mechanics and support staff.

This is a simple summary. You can read a lot more about this on AOPA, Pilot and Flyer web sites.

[viscount]

Ron,

A great piece on EASA v FAA, Europe v USA, Airbus v Boeing with the GA population in the middle and bearing the cost!

However it does not answer, despite your lead line 'Re-registration explained', actually why the Americans are 'overhauling' their register system. It certainly won't be because EASA has asked them to work out which aircraft are European owned!!

In my searches of the FAA register website, I would disagree with the US system being tightly recorded by the FAA. There are numerous aircraft still registered years after their last C of A expired. Many have notations regarding 'owner moved' etc., while owners are permitted to hide behind 'Trustee' organisations with Box addresses. Our CAA seem to insist on 'real' names (personal or company) and addresses.

In contrast, the CAA G-INFO searchable website has way, far more information, current and historical, with every owner listed for any regn, and re-registrations within G- traced. In contrast the Americans rarely show previous aircraft with that serial, and only the present owner, nor do they trace a re-registered aircraft from prevous N... serial(s).

I suspect it is the number of 'uncancelled' registrations and 'not at this address' owners that is behind the FAA needing to 're-register' all US aircraft, so ensuring uptodate information and freeing-up registrations allocated to long grounded airframes. Just as stated in the box on Carmedic's original post on this thread!

[Deleted]

Just a small point. If the Americans are to reregister all their aircraft, will they be changing the 'N' prefix? Can't see it being done anyother way.

[ronturner]

Brian,
I agree that the registration part of the FAA register is clearly in need of overhaul, but my comment about the FAA having good statistics relates to actual flying activity.
The number of accidents/injuries/fatalities per flying hour/landing/.. whatever measure you want to take, it can be proven the that FAA system of regulating pilots and maintenance results in the lowest number of incidents. There are many of us who think that EASA is basing its system on "opinions" a highly used word in EASA itself, not on fact, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that safety is already taking second place to policy. As far as I know, as I am basing the following comments on remarks made by AOPA, only our CAA had anything like the safety culture of the FAA in Europe, and the CAA, like most British organisations in the face of European regulation is just going along with it.
Just one small example:- In the UK over the last 30 years, the number of fatalities in GA has been around 10 per year. In France its a lot more and has reached nearly 80. (A similar population, number of pilots and hours flown.) The head of EASA resp. for GA is French, and guess what, EASA has accepted the French idea that new pilots with as few as 15 hours can fly solo WITH PASSENGERS, (Subject to certain conditions.) The deaths of several of these pilots and passengers each year, has had no effect on their thinking. On the other hand, the British IMC rating enabling PPLs to cope with bad weather was due to be scrapped: was only saved after a massive campaign by AOPA, and as I write is still not secure. This rating has been in existence for more than 40 years and no pilot or passenger has ever been killed in an incident where the pilot's IMC rating was being exercised. It does not make sense and all the time, they just keep putting their hands in our pockets.