New Annual needed soon

It seems the nice Summer weather has decided to go on vacation too. Warm sunny flying days have been replaced with crappy unpredictable rain soaked days, mixed with the occasional few days of strong gusts. I only hope that I get a break in the weather because I need to fly F-NP down to Strasbourg soon for it's Annual Check and CofA renewal before I head off on my on holidays soon.

I had hoped that I could have the work performed here in Holland and just get the guys in France to submit the paperwork to the French authorities....but those gombeens in the EASA have struck yet again. In an effort to harmonise the rules across Europe, in this case regarding maintenance of an aircraft, I have to wait until some date in Sept/Oct (which by then the CofA will have expired) in order to allow a perfectly qualified Ducth engineer to work on an "F" registered plane. Something I don't understand because a light GA plane works and fly's the same way in the air above Holland as it does above France or anywhere else for that matter. And if the engineer in Holland could fix it/look over it, then why must we be forced to wait for EASA to formally allow it in Sept/Oct.

Suffice to say, we European pilots hear a lot of bullshit from the multitude of Aviation Authorities, Groups, Organisations etc about standardising and singing from the same hymn-sheet but we never actually see it in practice. Look at the recent Mode "S" tx debacle, or the current conflict on licences and ratings (notably IMC vs Instrument Rating). Seems that standardisation results in more stringent rules being applied, and without any value-add in terms of extra safety...just more confusion, more paperwork and more cost. Oh how I long to have a flying experience enjoyed in the U.S. in place here in Europe.

Well....back to the weather charts to see if this weekend would work to get F-NP down South for her annual check-up.

Blue Skies