The other thing, can an aircraft be registered in two places at once? For example if a warbirds owner lived in one country for six months of the year (say NZ) and another the other six months (say the UK), and he took his warbird with him for each country’s airshow season – does he have to continually re-register it, or can it have dual citizenship? Or would it simply fly under another country’s codes (like they do with shipping?)
To answer this question, no, an aircraft cannot have ‘dual citizenship’. The C of A (Certificate of Airworthiness) is issued by a national Aviation Authority (AA) and you cannot have two CofAs. The registration is linked to the issueing authority. Now basically you cannot restrict an aircraft with for example a ‘N-‘ registration to that specific country, sorta limits the use of the aircraft! But when you base an aircraft in another country than the one it is registered in, the local AA can impose rules. This is not always possible, but it usually occurs when the owner is locally licensed and based. The reasoning behind this is that the AA is responsible for maintaining standards and upholding regulations and such, but if everyone starts flying aircraft registered abroad they are unable to check that these aircraft comply with local regulations. This may not be a problem with for example an N-registered aircraft flying in the UK, but it could also be a Zambia-registered one or something else from darkest Africa.
These limiting ‘rules’ differ for each country. And in some cases it is almost not possible to register for example a P-51 in Switzerland. Until a few years ago the Dutch AA (they probably still do) would view a B-25 as a new type since there has never been a civil B-25 on the Dutch register. Trying to get a Dutch CofA for a B-25 would then mean that you would have to go through the whole certification process as if it was a new design (same as when you try to get a new Boeing design on the US register). One way around this is to get an AA to certify an aircraft based on a foreign certification, but not every AA will do this (also dependent on the type). Another way is the ‘experimental’ CofA that some AAs have (Permit to Fly in the UK). Some AAs will let you register anything with wings on such a certificate but usually there is a complexity/weigth limit for these certifications too.
Hope all this still makes sense :rolleyes:
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