What a brilliant response, thank you Cindy.

After September 11 the US restricted the operation of foreign registered
aircraft (with exceptions for Canadian and Mexican aircraft for obvious
reasons). Do you happen to know if those restrictions continue? The FAA
Notam I can see seems to require a filed flight plan and mandatory
transponder use. Not so appropriate for gliders!

http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publi...0or%20less.pdf

Casey



CindyB wrote:
On Tuesday, November 19, 2013 7:57:58 AM UTC-8, wrote:
Dear US-gliding community,

Thanks in advance and best regards

Marc

Marc :
You ask about a combination of pilot and airframe, and how it may be
operated in the United States.

As a German national, you may fly a German registered airframe in the US,
as long as you keep the pilot and airframe 'legal' according to its home
country. Whatever German pilot currency requirements are needed must be
maintained (including medical certification). Whatever airframe
inspections are required in Germany must also be met. You mentioned the
use of a three year program. If it's legal there, it covers your airframe
here. There is no additional US paperwork required ! This is due to
ICAO agreements, worldwide reciprocity was established primarily for
airliners and their staff.

Our FAR citations follow, slightly snipped to pertinent portions:

"§91.9 Civil aircraft flight manual, marking, and placard requirements.
(a) Except as provided in paragraph (d) of this section, no person may
operate a civil aircraft without complying with the operating limitations
...., or as otherwise prescribed by the certificating authority of the
country of registry.
(b) No person may operate a U.S.-registered civil aircraft— .....snip

§91.203 Civil aircraft: Certifications required.
(a) Except as provided in §91.715, no person may operate a civil aircraft
unless it has within it the following:
(1) An appropriate and current airworthiness certificate. snip ...
(2) An effective U.S. registration certificate issued to its owner
snip, or a registration certification issued under the laws of a foreign country. "

- - - -

The foreign national pilot is, however, required to abide by all US
flight rules, and you might consider sitting down with a US glider flight
instructor and review the subjects they would normally cover in a 'flight
review', and perhaps a little more. For the airline pilot (think
Lufthansa) this is less problematic, as they fly on IFR flight plans, and
seldom consider exercising independent airmanship (smile).
How about that US pilot in the German 'legal' glider, flown in the US?
The US pilot should mind FAR 91.103. The implication is that any pilot
must know the machine is 'airworthy', which includes its home country inspections.

"§91.103 Preflight action.
Each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar
with all available information concerning that flight. This information
must include— snipped
(2) For civil aircraft other than those specified in paragraph (b)(1) of
this section, other reliable information appropriate to the aircraft,
relating to aircraft performance under expected values of airport
elevation and runway slope, aircraft gross weight, and wind and temperature. "

You are free to find an LBA certified maintenance provider, and/or fly
them over to make the required glider inspections and log entries, should
you need that. You might consider contacting a German air-carrier about
their hub services in New York or DC. Likely they would have LBA mechanic
staff there for the Airbus and Boeing products.

For duties and taxes, I have no information. There will be port handling
fees and customs clearance fees, which can be researched through a
customs broker or shipping line. As you are not importing it for sale, I
imagine this is minimal.

Costello Insurance is very knowledgeable for coverage in the US.
www.gliderinsurance.com You should ask your home carrier about
extending coverage to the US. We manage to get this done for a World Championships or two.

Trailer wiring was answered for you.

Now - for the folks who wanted to extrapolate beyond your questions,
there are a few things for you to do, should you want to fly a US
registered glider. You would need authorization as a US certificated
pilot. You can get this two ways.

First option is to use the ICAO process for reciprocity. Use the form
from our FAA to apply for a reciprocal rating. Provide copies of all your
German certifications. Send to our FAA, wait for them to send it to LBA
and get (snail) mail confirmation back to a local FAA FSDO office in NJ.
Pick up your US certificate at that office, and get a flight review
endorsement in your logbook from a US glider flight instructor. You must
keep ALL LBA requirements up to date to use the US certificate, and get a
new US flight review as needed (FAR 61.56) to go beyond two years privileges.
See he
http://www.faa.gov/licenses_certific..._verification/

Option Two is to pretend you are a glider student, and proceed through
the US pilot certification process. You may use your German logbook to
meet flight time requirements, but must fly and do the maneuvers and have
the endorsements given by a US flight instructor to pass the two US tests
( written and practical, in that order). This was implied by the other
posters. You could perhaps fly as an endorsed 'student pilot', if the US
CFI wanted to give you those endorsements, but insured flight operations
would be more costly for a "student" than for a US Private certificated airman.

Welcome to the US (soon). "UH" will be happy to welcome you to New
Jersey and his flying site. They have some marvelous soaring up there.
You might consider becoming an SSA member . . . . www.ssa.org :-)

Cindy B
SSA Region 12 Director