General Aviation Pilot Licensing Review Phase 2: Helicopters

We ran a consultation, CAP2974E, from 13 March to 22 May 2024 asking the UK General Aviation (GA) community for their views on our proposed strategic direction for pilot licensing and training simplification - Helicopters.

The consultation covered the following themes:

• Combined licence documents for both the sub-ICAO and ICAO compliant private helicopter licences.
• Proposed amendments to theoretical knowledge (TK) examinations including number of exams and validity periods as well as the use of mobile devices for planning.
• Flight instructor theoretical knowledge and ways of improving the requirements.
• Other issues within the helicopter category that we may not have considered.

We received 37 responses to this consultation. All respondents answered the survey questions and some left detailed comments. There was however 1 respondent who did not answer the TK question.

• Combined licence documents: We received significant support for both proposals to issue a combined licence document for both ICAO compliant and sub-ICAO helicopter licences.
• Amendments to TK:
  • Number of exams: The most popular suggestion was to combine exams into 7 rather than the current 9 however there was significant support to keep the current requirements of 9 examinations.
  • Use of mobile devices: We received overwhelming support to use mobile devices in planning training and also navigation exercises.
  • Validity periods: 62% of respondents agreed that we should amend the validity period of exams to 36 months rather than the current 24 month validity.
• Flight Instructor TK: We received 19 comments to this request for suggestions. A selection of them can be found in the consultation response document (CRD).
• Other issues: 21 respondents left comments on this section. A selection can be found in the CRD.

• We will be proceeding with the next phase of this project to develop and move forward with proposed changes.
• We will now begin work on drafting the necessary documents, required by the Department for Transport (DfT), to implement changes to the ANO and Part-FCL.
• We are working towards a legislative slot in Spring 2025.
• We will also liaise with internal colleagues to ensure that our systems, internal instructions documents and all staff are ready for the implementation of these changes.
• Due to the volume of work and resource constraints in the legislative programme, some areas of policy relating to helicopters will not be progressed until 2026. These include changes relating to:
  • Theoretical knowledge examinations

We have published our consultation response document, setting out these findings in more detail: CAP3032E