US or EASA – which ‘biennial' is best?

Under the FAA BFR scheme, US pilots must pass a test every other year. Over here, you can stay current simply by flying the minumum number of hours, one with an instructor. As the CAA prepares to leave EASA, can it learn something from the FAA?

- Tim Cooper

Late last year we bought a wonderfully restored, bright yellow Swiss Fuji FA-200-180. Our intention was to use the machine in a new, African, joint venture. We registered the Fuji G-MDAM. She was due to have a little work done and an export C of A issued, and then to be shipped out to Africa ready to start work.

The project will eventually go ahead−it’s a compliance business−but right now the venture is at a juddering standstill and we find ourselves with a Fuji in an expensive hangar, sulking like an annoyed teenager. So, how to keep MDAM and Madam occupied, aloft and happy, and perhaps earning enough to cover MDAM’s fixed costs? That’s when I had a light bulb moment−let’s do some training in MDAM while she’s stuck in UK, and not just any old training, let’s do something for which there might be some new demand. I love a silver lining.

Madam, or Emma, is an American pilot through and through, although really she is Anglo-Irish (all flashing eyes, blarney and fighting temper). An unrivalled appetite for both barbecued chicken wings and the eponymous cartoon strip prove this beyond doubt. She lived in Florida where she learned to fly and became an Airframe and Powerplant mechanic, before fetching up in Uganda where for a decade she was a bush pilot and instructor. When we came home from Uganda she converted all her FAA privileges to an Irish EASA licence, but still retains her FAA certificate and ratings.