The flying is the easy part — Turkish CAA, Georgian CAA and Luxembourg DAC in one pipeline

August 10, 2026

The flying is the easy part.

By the time 26 aircraft cross an international border together, someone has already spent weeks moving paperwork between four aviation authorities in three countries — and the piece that pilots see, uploading a document on a portal, is the very last step.

European aviation — two regulatory paths for touring aircraft

Three authorities, three formats

For every aircraft on the expedition, we submit approvals to three authorities:

Turkish CAA, via AOPA Türkiye. Coordinated by Turgut Kulacoglu. Requires an English-language dossier per aircraft: registration certificate, airworthiness (with ARC for EASA aircraft, LogBook entry for N-registered), noise certificate, insurance certificate with War Liabilities explicitly included, pilot licence, medical.
Georgian CAA, direct to Mr. Mindia Mindiashvili. Similar bundle but accepts local-language documents (or English with a translation). Insurance must explicitly cover Georgia.
Luxembourg DAC, for the ULM subset of the fleet (11 of the 26). Additional items on top of the general dossier: proof of speed above 90 kts on downwind, proof of 8.33 kHz and Mode S transponder equipment, and ICAO English Level 4 for the PIC.

Three authorities, three formats, three timelines. And in the middle of that, 26 pilots each with their own certificate expiries, licence updates, medical renewals and insurance renewals to keep aligned with the departure date.

One submission, two authorities

Because Turkey and Georgia both need broadly the same document set, we built the expedition portal so that each crew uploads their documents once, and we generate a properly structured ZIP bundle per crew per authority. For Georgia, that becomes a single email to Mr. Mindiashvili with the crew’s dossier and a submission checklist. For Türkiye, it goes to AOPA Türkiye at ppluxocc@aopa.org.tr, cc Turgut, with the same underlying data reformatted for that authority’s preference.

The 5-state per-crew submission tracker (not submitted → submitted → approved / questions / rejected) has been invaluable. It is the difference between coordinating 20+ separate email threads by hand and knowing at a glance which crew is where in the loop.

First visit to the Georgian Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), 2015 — First visit to the Georgian CAA in 2015. Groundwork for 2026 was quite literally laid a decade ago.

Why this matters beyond the expedition

Every one of these workflows exists because European light aviation still has to move paperwork between countries by hand, per-aircraft, for every international trip. The Schengen agreement made borders invisible for people on the ground; in the air, for private aviation, they are still very much there — and for ULMs, since the 2018 Article 2(8) Opt-Out of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139, they have arguably become more fragmented, not less.

The reason we built a portal at all was to prove that with the right coordination the paperwork does not need to be the reason 26 aircraft do not fly to Georgia. It should not be.

Genuine thanks to Turgut Kulacoglu at AOPA Türkiye, to Mr. Mindiashvili at the Georgian CAA, and to the Luxembourg DAC team — they have been patient, responsive and constructive throughout. The expedition would not fly without that.