Is the final form known? Theory requirements, any freelance FI option, and acceptance of previous training for example?
Yes the full FCL amendment is published:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32020R0359&from=EN
MattL wrote:
Yes the full FCL amendment is published:
AFAIK, the AMC/GM are not yet published and that’s where the TK syllabus is.
But part-FCL has no flight time requirement, i.e. the BIR will be fully “competence-based”. This also means that questions about previous training or freelance instructions are moot.
You could do the bulk of the training on an unapproved PC simulator. You won’t get any credit for it, but you don’t need the credit, you only need the competence.
No ATO signing you off for the exam ?
Jujupilote wrote:
No ATO signing you off for the exam ?
Sure.
Airborne_Again wrote:
No ATO signing you off for the exam ?
Sure.
Which by and large they probably won’t do unless you spend a certain sum of money on training?
Neither the regulator nor the training industry wants a situation where candidates are responsible for their own readiness (or otherwise) for exams/checkrides.
This mentality is common and understandable in professional environments where an industry uses expensive and mandatory training, as well as testing & examination, not just to protect standards but as a barrier to entry – to protect against an oversupply of professionals which would threaten the livelihoods of those already inside.
The trouble here is that the same barrier to entry drifts into ‘private’ qualifications in a way that it probably shouldn’t do. For instance, do you have to take X number of hours of professional instruction before taking a driving test? Of course not – you book a test and you turn up on the day. Whether you are skilled and prepared enough to pass the test is entirely your problem, with no supporting system designed to ensure that only suitable candidates can get a test.
Graham wrote:
The trouble here is that the same barrier to entry drifts into ‘private’ qualifications in a way that it probably shouldn’t do. For instance, do you have to take X number of hours of professional instruction before taking a driving test?
In Germany there is actually a mandatory minimum number of training hours for the drivers license…and since it’s an EU license, that should be the case anywhere in the EU, no?
MedEwok wrote:
In Germany there is actually a mandatory minimum number of training hours for the drivers license…and since it’s an EU license, that should be the case anywhere in the EU, no?
And do those minimum hours have to be with a (presumably licenced) professional driving instructor, or just with someone else in the car?
Here in the UK there is no such requirement and never has been. Anyone (who is old enough and not medically disqualified) can apply for a provisional licence and then immediately sit the theory test and, upon passing that, book the practical test. No part of the system is remotely interested in whether you had any driving lessons or who you had them with. If you can pass the test you get a licence and there is nothing more to it than that.
Why mandate minimum training hours? The only plausible explanations are (a) to support a training industry, and/or (b) increase the pass-rate so that the system can get away with employing fewer examiners.
If you take the position that both the professionally-delivered training and the test are essential for safe driving, then you are effectively saying that the test is not up to scratch.
One historical reason, told to me by an FTO instructor, was that the flight training business demanded minimum training, and specifically the bogus “pre-test test” called 170A, because the CAA was publishing FTO checkride pass rates (I haven’t seen this so maybe it is old, probably banned by “GDPR” like everything else in life) and customers were choosing FTOs according to these pass rates.
Just like parents choose schools by exam pass rate league tables, which private schools then manipulate by the blindingly obvious method of refusing to take in kids from “communities which correlate with a low level of parental interest in their kids’ education” 
@Graham, you have no idea how things are in, … other parts of the world, do you? Or how lucky you are. In my country, I had to sign a presences book for every theory lesson I attended, and do some (big) number of those before taking the theory test. Also a minimum of driving lessons with an instructor before doing the practical exam.
Last I heard, the ‘industry’ or the government, I forgot which, wanted instruction cars to be fitted with logging devices to prove that students had the required hours….
Be grateful for the common sense approach, although history shows that things only get worse. Isn’t the theory test also something new in the UK? I recall hearing that the practical examiner would just ask you some questions about traffic signs and road rules.
