Thanks for your side of the story, it's always easy to pass judgement when you're only getting information from one source (the media).
A few responses from me:
techlogsigner wrote:The aircraft is American registered and from what I understand the Americans accept the British test pilot licence (which means that the pilot can fly ANY aircraft without needing special type ratings).
Unfortunately this isn't correct. The British authorities use the JAR-FCL for licensing, so their rules are the same as for Denmark, the Netherlands, and most other European countries. What the Americans do accept, is that you can fly an American registered aircraft as long as you have a valid typerating for that type issued by the country that you are operating in/over {FAR 61.3 (a)(1)}.
If the CAA have a testpilot license (which I've never heard of), as it wouldn't meet JAR-FCL requirements, I would expect that it would have the restriction that it can only be used in UK airspace along with other restrictions.
techlogsigner wrote:The fields on the German side of the border were all too bad weatherwise, so they decided to land in Twenthe, WHICH ACC. TO THE CURRENT MAPS AND AIP IS STILL OPEN. The crew also obeyed all procedures applicable to such a situation.
Correct, Twente is officially still open. The only restrictions are that the operating hours are limited (0800-1700LT Mon-Fri), and prior permission is required to land there (a planned landing, emergency landings would of course be exempt).
techlogsigner wrote:(as I said, the British and American interpretation is that a test pilot DOESN´T NEED A TYPE RATING, HE IS GOOD FOR ANY AIRCRAFT TYPE IN HIS TEST PILOT CLASS). The pilot is a flight instructor on fast jets in the UK and has flown and instructed on the T-33 before.
Theres no doubt he can fly the plane (and well), but this is similar to the Swedish pilot arrested recently in Amsterdam, he could fly the plane (otherwise he'd never have made captain), but his paperwork was not in order. Even if such a testpilot license for the UK exists (which I doubt), that's no guarantee that it is excepted outside of the UK.
techlogsigner wrote:From what I understand now the issue is that they didn´t have an entry permission into the Netherlands (since it was never planned to fly into the Netherlands, the operator never applied for one, the decision to land in Twente was solely made to avert a possible danger arising from the generator failure and the temporary IMC at the German airports).
I'm assuming (and you'll probably know whether thats the case or not), that the aircraft has a special flight permit (ie limited certificate of airworthiness), and those normally require the operator to get specific permission from each country overflown prior to the flight. As you were never planning on overflying the Netherlands, you wouldn't need this permission. Because of the emergency situation, IVW (the Dutch authorities) probably won't make too big a deal of it (although you never know with them), so now it's just a matter of getting that permission and a licensed pilot, and you should be good to go.
Either way, hopefully that will be sorted out soon, and you can get the old girl to where she belongs.
Good luck and Regards,
Yorden
... there's still life in the airfield! Would the pilot be old enough to remember the T-birds that, in the old days, were based there with the Jachtvliegschool 
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