Pleasant surprise

Malbec is far too wet to fly from at the moment and will probably remain so for a couple of weeks given the amount of rain we’re currently getting, but all of my ULMs are now flyable and it’s about time that I dealt with all of the ‘paperwork’ to ensure that when the time does come, I’m doing so legally.

Compared to the expensive and tortuous process that ULM owners in the UK have to go through on an annual basis to have their aircraft inspected and permitted in order to continue flying them legally, we are most fortunate in France in that the only requirement is for ULM owners to declare every two years that their aircraft are airworthy and that no changes have been made to their specifications.

The last time I did this for the X-Air just over two years ago, I had to download the relevant paperwork from the DGAC’s web site, fill it in and send it off. This was the system when I first came to France and eventually you received a new ‘Carte d’Identification’ for your aircraft which lasted for the next two years, after which you’d repeat the process.

Since then the system was streamlined making the lives of ‘Cartes d’Indentification’ indefinite and it only necessary for owners to make a two-yearly declaration that their aircraft were airworthy (Apte au Vol), a system that was free but that still involved downloading and sending off the appropriate form.

But no more! When I logged onto the DGAC’s web site yesterday, I was presented with the option of logging onto my ‘personal’ ULM space (MonEspaceULM) and when I typed in the requirements to identify myself for the Savannah, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the details for both it and the X-Air came up against my name.

And not only that, I was then able to complete the procedure for re-validating both aircraft automatically on line without the need to send forms off in the post and also print off the proof of having done so for filing in each aircraft’s dossier.

The system is very user-friendly, quick and best of all, free, so what’s not to like? I’d dealt with both aircraft in under 10 minutes and I suggest that it’s a model that could, and should, be applied elsewhere.

It makes a mockery of what poor UK pilots have to go through annually within a system that’s both time-consuming and expensive. Littler wonder that there are four times the number of ULM pilots in France compared to the UK, for about the same population.