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The Aircrew Regulation under EASA
The European Commission Regulation (EU) No. 1178/2011 (the "Aircrew Regulation") is binding and directly applicable in all EASA Member States since 8 April 2012.
The regulation includes several annexes, of which Part-FCL (Flight Crew Licensing, Annex I) and Part-MED (Medical Certification, Annex IV) are the most important ones for pilots.[1] In order to act as a pilot-in-command of an "EASA aircraft" as specified in the Regulation, it is a regulated requirement to hold a pilot license according to Part-FCL, in principle. However, due to the burdensome requirements for organizations - such as gliding clubs - for training towards such a pilot licence (non-commercial), Part-DTO (Annex VIII) was introduced by Commission Regulation (EU) 2018/1119 of 31 July 2018 to ease the promotion for more General Aviation.
Nonetheless, each Member State was given by legislation (the Commission Regulation itself) the possibility, through a derogation, to not apply among others:
- Annexes I to IV until 8 April 2013
- provisions of Annex I related to powered-lift aircraft and airships until 8 April 2015
- provisions of Annex I related to sailplanes and balloons until
8 April 2018/ 8 April 2020 (extended by Regulation (EU) 2018/1119)
For glider pilots, the last itemized possible derogation is probably the most relevant one; indeed, the United Kingdom is making use of this possibility: The UK CAA has filed such a derogation to exempt pilots of sailplanes and balloons from licensing requirements in the United Kingdom - while gliding clubs (or the British Gliding Association in the UK) use the time to set themselves up as DTOs to offer EASA-compliant training courses towards the LAPL(S) license or the SPL license:
http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/ORS4No1292.pdf
Hence, currently, there is still no requirement to hold a (Part-FCL compliant) pilot license while flying a sailplane in the UK, yet. In fact, there is no legal requirement in the UK, at all, to hold a license as a glider pilot for non-commercial operations.
Changes in EASA Sailplane Licensing: Part-SFCL (possibly from April 2020)
Opinion No 01/2019 (A) & (B)
https://www.easa.europa.eu/document-library/opinions/opinion-no-012019-b
LAPL(S)/SPL license (as of up until March 2020)
Footnotes
Template:Reflist- ↑ The other annexes are concerned with the cabin crew in Part-CC (Annex V), the aircrew requirements for the National Aviation Authorities - e.g. the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for the United Kingdom or the German Luftfahrtbundesamt (LBA) for Germany - in Part-ARA (Annex VI), the aircrew requirements for organizations - such as aeromedical centres and training organizations - in Part-ORA (Annex VII) and requirements for Declared Training Organizations in Part-DTO (Annex VIII). Conversion requirements for (existing) national licenses of Member States are regulated by Annex II; and the validation/conversion of those from third countries (under which the UK falls after a "No Deal"-Brexit) are regulated by Annex III.