Recreational Aviation Australia (RAAus) CEO Michael Linke has said that CASA is due to take the MTOW increase to public consultation in the middle of this year.
Linke's comments came in response to a question asked at a gathering of RAAus members at the Australian International Airshow at Avalon on Thursday.
RAAus applied for an increase to their maximum take-off weight from 600 kg to either 750 or 1500 kg in 2016, with CASA confirming their support in June last year after a lot of work from both RAAus and the regulator.
"We will be at public consultation in the middle of the year," Linke said. "We met with CASA last week; CASA has approved the weight increase in principle.
"There was a number of things that [we] needed to do and we’ve done most of those things. There are a couple that we have to finish off – practical training is one of those things that we didn’t finish off – but we are preparing ourselves for CASR Part 149 [Approved Self-administering Aviation Organisation].
"We’ve put our processes in place, we’ve put our framework in place, we’ve put our safety management systems in place. So CASA is now satisfied that we can go to public consultation around the middle of the year."
The consultation package is expected to proposed a staged increase in MTOW, with Stage One allowing aircraft with MTOWs up to 760 kg on the RAAus register and Stage Two expanding that limit to 1500 kg.
CASA is also likely to call for feedback on maintenance for RAAus aircraft that fall into the new weight limit, with proposals expected to require LAME maintenance for aircraft over 600 kg.