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

We asked for feedback on a proposal to amend the Acceptable Means of Compliance (AMC) and Guidance Material (GM) to the UK Sailplane Regulation.

The consultation ran from 25 March 2025 to 6 May 2025. To help with the contextual understanding of the consultations, draft implementing rules were 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 had already been the subject of consultation in Phase 2 of the project. Stakeholders were reminded that while the legislative drafting process continued, the draft implementing rules should not be taken as the final wording of UK law as all amendments to legislation are subject to a drafting process by Government.

We received a total of four hundred and seventy-nine (479) responses to the consultation. We received strong support for the amendments to AMC/GM for SFCL.050 and SFCL.130.

The amendments to the AMC for SFCL.135 received overwhelming support.

The amendments to the AMC for SFCL.145 (practical skill test), to include partial loss of power, AMC for SFCL.150 (extension of privileges), to include gliding club and AMC for SFCL.160 (recency), to remove the authorisation process within ORA.ATO.135 of Annex VII (Part ORA) or point DTO.GEN.240 of Annex VIII for aircraft listed in (c) or (d) of Annexe 1 to the UK Basic Regulation, also received very strong support.

Overwhelming support was also received for the amended AMC and the new GM for SFCL.200, including unsupervised solo practice for advanced aerobatics after successful dual training of the specific manoeuvre and logbook signature by an FI(S), and the amended AMC for SFCL.205, removal of all references to sailplane towing rating.

All amendments and new AMC and GM for SFCL.315, SFCL.325, SFCL.330, SFCL.340, SFCL.345, SFCL.360 and SFCL.365, all relating to the introduction of the BI(S), were all highly supported. There were a number of comments raised regarding the regulation change itself however these were not relevant to this consultation. We did receive a high volume of comments praising the introduction of the BI(S) and the work the CAA and BGA have done to get this into the regulation.

Finally, the amendments to AMC and GM for SFCL.415 and SFCL.430, amendments to examining support the introduction of the BI(S), received overwhelming support.

We acknowledge the responses and thank the responders for their suggestions.

The need to consult with interested parties on the development of rules that could have important social implications is set out in the Basic Regulation. The consultation process is also inherent in UK law and consultation is widely used to support this principle.  

Conclusion

The CAA has now amended/implemented all of the proposed AMC and GM into Part-SFCL.