I’m going to be heading to Australia in about a month and was going to see if I can take up an airplane around Sydney while I’m there.
I haven’t done any research on the matter but I was under the impression that:
- You can log dual time in a foreign country/airplane
- You can only log PIC time in an aircraft for which the registration and the country of issue of your license is the same
Is this the case? If so, can you point me to supporting documentation?
Update: I’ve done some investigation. From what I can tell, you are not allowed to act as PIC of an Australian registered aircraft without an Australian License. You can get a Certificate of Validation which allows CASA to recognize your Canadian license as an Australian one. As for logging the time, I suspect you can do it in either case above, so long as the Dual time was with a foreign instructor.
I’ve never seen restrictions on logging time based on the relative nationalities of aircraft/license/country. I have read that in Canada you can only act as PIC if you hold a Canadian license with appropriate privileges, or you hold a license from the contracting state (with appropriate privileges) in which the airplane is registered. This from a TSBC report on a German pilot flying a US registered plane in Canada.
I can only assume as a contracting state Australia would have similar rules. There are procedures for getting license documents based on foreign licenses but they may be different state to state. Australian Air Safaris offers U-fly tours and have some information on documentation requirements on their website.
Richard,
I take it you are talking about this particular Incident?
http://www.bst-tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/aviation/2001/a01o0210/a01o0210.asp
If I read the report correctly, the aircraft was still registered in Germany, however the pilot held both a German and US license.
His US license had an IFR rating, but his German one did not. Since he was flying a German registered Aircraft, then his German license took precedence.
I could be wrong. This particular incident is pretty confusing.
Your Canadian license does not allow you to fly a VH-registered aircraft in Australia. You would either need to find a C-registered aircraft down under (unlikely) or obtain a foreign license validation from the Aussie authorities. This used to be easy, but post 9/11 there is now a TON of red tape. Background checks, fees, delays. A month is probably pushing it.
Any FBO is going to require a significant checkout before renting to to a foreign pilot anyway. Unless you want to do a ton of flying, I recommend just getting some dual. That’s what I did when I was there in 2004.
In terms of logging, you can generally log dual received from any qualified & current ICAO instructor.
What’s really bizarre is that that TSB report gets the definition of GPS RAIM wrong. They called it “Random Acquisition Integrity Monitoring” which is incorrect and kind of nonsensical. The actual acronym is “Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring”.
Makes you wonder what other basic stuff they get wrong.
Yup that is the accident, and it is confusing and worryingly in error in places. Mac, that is, by the way, how I assess media reporting. I read what they have written on a subject of which I some knowledge, and assume they achieve a similar level of accuracy in other reporting. Depressing really.
Richard – that sounds like a good idea.
What baffles me is where they came up with “Random Acquisition…”. They must have just made it up – Google lists no other source on the entire Internet with that term.
I’m an ultralight pilot and flew twice while visiting Sydney in June. Sydney is a spectacular place and a flight along the coast is a treat. Sydney doesn’t have the equivalent of Buttonville or City Centre; most of their civil flying occurs from airports about 30 miles away. I flew from Camden, which is a great little airport with a part-time tower. Here’s a website for guys at Camden that appear to have a decent fleet: http://www.curtisaviation.com.au/default.asp?page=f&fr=planes
Good luck.
Hi Blake,
I’m a bit behind in my feed reading and just caught your article here. Are you in Australia soon?
Along with Steve Visscher, I’m one of the guys behind the Plane Crazy Down Under podcast (www.planecrazydownunder.com). We’re down in Melbourne so may not have a chance to meet up but know a few folks in Sydney who may be able to catch up with you.
It would be great to get you on the show after you’ve had a flight or two to discuss differences & similarities between flying in the USA and flying here. Email me if you’re interested :)
Cheers,
Grant