Recreational Aviation Australia (RAAus) this week told Australian Flying that they no longer had any objections to private pilots being able to fly on a self-declared medical standard.
Previously, RAAus' official position had been to oppose the move because it was seen as a threat to their business plan.
However, current RAAus CEO Matt Bouttell said his organisation now had no objections to private pilots being granted medical privileges largely equivalent to recreational pilots.
"Our position is simple," he said, "a risk-based approach to aviation medicine is what's required. RAAus has demonstrated that we can operate safety under the operational limitations that we have, as have the other sport aviation organisations. We don't own [self-declared medicals]; we've just demonstrated that it can be done safely.
"If that encourages other sectors of the industry then that's great."
That position is in contrast to the official RAAus feedback to the original AvMed proposals in 2017, when the organisation predicted dire financial consequences and disadvantage for members should CASA PPLs be given access to self-declared medicals, concerned over an exodus of members.
Bouttell, who sits on the CASR Part 67 Technical Working Group (TWG) considering medical reform, said he was not worried that reforms would have a financial impact on his organisation.
"Self-declared medicals are certainly part of our value proposition, but to be honest, I think the biggest element of our value proposition is that we're not CASA," he said.
"There are a whole bunch of other benefits about being a member of RAAus. We have a lot of other strings to our bow. It's not something I'm losing sleep at night over."
The comments come as self-declared medicals for private pilots took a step closer to reality after the CASR Part 67 TWG met on 25 August to frame recommendations to CASA's Aviation Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) on medical reforms.
CASA has said they are looking at three key reforms for Part 67:
- self-declared medical for private pilots
- building the principles underlying the Basic Class 2 into Part 67 and simplifying the medical certification structure
- empowering DAMEs to do more by expanding delegations.
Self-declared medicals have been on the GA community wish list for several years, but attempts to introduce it have been thwarted in the past by a lack of support within CASA and resistance from RAAus.
ASAP is due to meet on 13 October to discuss the TWG recommendations, which are believed to support self-declared medicals after the risk of a safety occurence was assessed as being low.