Where Can You Fly a Gyrocopter in Europe?

British, French, Polish, German or Georgian registration - and which licence goes with it

There is no European gyroplane licence and no European registration. A two-seat gyroplane of 600 kg or less sits in Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 - outside EASA - so every country writes its own rules, and the real question is not "is it certified in Europe" but which country registers your aircraft, and does your licence match it. That sounds like an obstacle. In practice it is a choice, and it is one we make with buyers regularly.

This page sets out how the pieces fit: where the ARGON is already accepted, which licence goes with which registration, which route is usually the quickest, and what we need to know from you before any of it can be answered properly.

The rule underneath everything

An aircraft flies on the registration of the country it is registered in, and the pilot flies on a licence issued or accepted by that same country. Get those two to agree and you have an aircraft you can fly; get them out of step and you have an expensive ornament.

The United Kingdom is the clearest illustration. The CAA says a gyroplane licence "can only be used on UK-registered gyroplanes inside UK airspace, unless you have an agreement with the aviation authorities in another country". And because UK gyroplanes fly on a national Permit to Fly rather than an international certificate of airworthiness, taking one abroad needs the destination country's agreement as well.

None of that means you cannot fly abroad. It means it is arranged in advance. Our own training operation in the Algarve does exactly this: a UK-registered aircraft, flown in Portugal by a UK-licensed instructor, on an agreed basis.

Where the ARGON can be registered today

A country will only register an aircraft whose type it accepts. These are the ARGON GTL's, with the document behind each one:

The documents themselves are published on the ARGON GTL page. Italy is deliberately absent: Italian ultralight flying runs through the VDS system and the Aero Club d'Italia, and our type is not on that list, so an Italian registration is not something we can offer today.

France: usually the quickest licence

The French ULM brevet is the shortest road into the air that we know of in Europe. It asks for the common ULM theory certificate - a paper of 60 multiple-choice questions in an hour and a half - and then, with an instructor of the class you intend to fly, a ground test and a flight test. French rules set no statutory minimum number of flying hours: the instructor decides when you are ready. Schools reckon on 20 to 30 hours for the autogyro class in practice.

Compare that with the UK gyroplane licence, which has a fixed floor of 40 hours and five written exams, and you can see why the French route suits somebody who wants to be flying this season.

The catch is the aircraft, not the pilot. To be identified in France a ULM must declare a point d'attache - a base on French soil where it normally lives. French registration therefore suits somebody with a hangar, a strip or a home in France, not somebody who simply likes the paperwork.

Poland, Germany, Georgia

Poland. The gyroplane certificate is the UAGP, issued by the Civil Aviation Authority (ULC) after theory and a practical examination flown in front of a state examiner, with a medical. The ARGON holds Polish type approval, and the factory is Polish - which makes training, parts and any factory visit straightforward. We can arrange the training there and walk the paperwork through with you.

Germany. Gyroplanes are ultralights under national rules, type-approved against the German BUT code - the GTL holds DAeC type certificate 66263 - and flown on the German ultralight licence.

Georgia. The Civil Aviation Agency has issued the GTL its ULM identification sheet, which is why we opened sales there; the details are on our Georgia page.

So how do we actually do it

In the order that matters:

1. You tell us where you live, where the aircraft will be kept, and what licence - if any - you already hold.
2. We work out the pairing: which country can register your aircraft, which licence goes with that registration, and what it will take you to hold it.
3. We help you get the licence. France if speed matters and you have a base there; Poland if you want to train where the aircraft is built; the United Kingdom if you are British and staying.
4. We handle the aircraft's side - the factory documents that country needs, and the registration itself.
5. We put it in writing before you commit. These rules differ by country and change over time, and the answer you get from us will name the authority and the document rather than an opinion.

What we will not do is tell you a route works before we have checked it. If the honest answer is that your country does not accept the type yet, you will hear that from us first - the way we say plainly that no four-seat gyroplane is certified anywhere, and that the three-seat Triple sits outside British type approval.

Frequently asked questions