"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
...
Peter Clark wrote in
:

On Sat, 16 Aug 2008 09:16:31 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:

Sylvain wrote in
news:dLqdnXWwn7dTyTvVnZ2dnUVZ_qTinZ2d@speakeasy .net:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

Apparently, the FAA third is not valid abroad unless specifically
allowed by the coutry you're flying in.

Surprising. Any specifics? e.g., which country did not recognize
the FAA Class-III?

Almost all of them, I think.

in what circumstance? (I mean, flying a N-
registered aircraft or a locally registered aircraft)?

Both. your FAA licence is not valid anywhere outside the US without
express permission of the local authority.

who made the
call (local aviation authority official, or some busy body imposing
made up rules on the spot -- that I have seen happen a few times :-)
was it a class-III per se, or a Class-II or better that had expired
into a Class-III? (this one can cause confusion as well, even
though
it is spelled out on the piece of paper proper); was it an
unrestricted Class-III, or does it bear some kind of restriction?

The FAA are responsible for this. When they degraded the class three
below international standards. It was a tradeoff. I think it's mostly
the time thing, but I think they lowered standards in other areas as
well. Lower eyesight, maybe I don't know. This allows a lot more
people
to fly in the US and all anyone who wants to fly abroad has to do is
get
a class 2, so it seems like a good idea to me.
I got the info from a friend of mine who's an examiner in Europe. I
put
it to him that it would be legal to fly a US reg airplane with a
standard private anywhere in the world, and he told me that while this
used to be the case, it is no longer..

In all honesty, I know a number of people who would really like to see
the exact regulatory reasoning with citations as to why a pilot with
an FAA pilot certificate and a valid 3rd class medical flying an N
registered aircraft isn't legal outside of the US any longer,


It's simple. ICAO have international agreements on what constitutes the
minimum standard that a pilot may operate in any of the member's
countrie's. The FAA have opted out of keeping the 3rd class to that
standard. ICAO haven't changed the rules, th eFAA have only elected to
lower the standards in order to allow a larger number of applicants into
the club and also to allow the certificate to last longer.

In fact, the reverse is true. The FAA opted in to bringing their medical
duration lengths to the ICAO standard.

ICAO changed the medical duration standards in 2005, and the FAA rule change
in June of this year mirrored those standards. In fact, in part of the
reasoning behind the FAA's rule change they cited the ICAO standards and
noted there had been no adverse impact to safety by the member states that
adopted those standards.

I'm not sure what you mean my "international agreements". ICAO writes the
standards, and member states may or may not follow them. The recent trend
among most countries, including the US, is to align themselves to ICAO
standards.