General Aviation Pilot Licensing Review - Acceptable Means of Compliance (AMC) and Guidance Material (GM) to the UK Aircrew Regulation

Overview

In March 2024 the CAA launched a 10-week public consultation seeking stakeholder views on proposed changes to licences and ratings across the GA aircraft categories:

• aeroplanes including microlights
• balloons and airships
• sailplanes
• helicopters
• gyroplanes

The consultation received a total of 1411 responses.

A summary of the responses received, the decisions made, and next steps can be found in the consultation response document and on the consultation pages. In addition to the consultation response document, we have provided summary documents that detail the consultation responses by GA aircraft category:

• aeroplanes including microlights
• balloons and airships
• sailplanes
• helicopters
• gyroplanes

For more detail on the project and associated timelines, please see our webpage on Licensing & Training Simplification.

We have now drafted the accompanying Acceptable Means of Compliance (AMC) and Guidance Material (GM) to support the legislative changes. AMC sets out the more detailed means by which compliance may be achieved. GM assists in understanding the meaning and interpretation of a regulation.

To help with the contextual understanding of the consultations, draft implementing rules have been included for reference purposes only as per the Opinion and Instruction Documents (OID) submitted to the Department for Transport (DfT).

The implementing rules provided for reference have already been the subject of consultation in Phase 2 of this project. Whilst the legislative drafting process continues, they should not be taken as the final wording of UK law as all amendments to legislation are subject to a drafting process by Government.

There are three consultations containing the draft AMC/GM:

The Aircrew Regulation AMC GM consultation relates to UK Regulation (EU) 1178/2011 on procedures related to civil aviation aircrew

The Balloon AMC GM consultation relates to UK Regulation (EU) 2018/395 (the “Balloon Regulations”)

The Sailplane AMC GM consultation relates to UK Regulation (EU) 2018/1976 (the “Sailplane Regulations”)

Why your views matter

It is important to the CAA that industry has an opportunity to voice their opinion on matters that could affect them. There is also a legal requirement under the UK Basic Regulation to consult when creating or amending AMC. Consequently, these consultations are an opportunity to provide your views and comments on the proposed AMC/GM amendments.