M.A.803
M.A.803(a) Qualifications
(a) To qualify as a Pilot-owner, the person must:
1. hold a valid pilot licence (or equivalent) issued or validated by a Member State for the aircraft type or class rating; and
2. own the aircraft, either as sole or joint owner; that owner must be:
(i) one of the natural persons on the registration form; or
(ii) a member of a non-profit recreational legal entity, where the legal entity is specified on the registration document as owner or operator, and that member is directly involved in the decision making process of the legal entity and designated by that legal entity to carry out Pilot-owner maintenance.
M.A.803(b) Certification of maintenance
(b) For any other than complex motor-powered aircraft of 2 730 kg MTOM and below, which are not used in CAT operations, in commercial specialised operations or in commercial operations by ATOs or DTOs, the pilot-owner may issue a CRS after having carried out limited pilot-owner maintenance as specified in Appendix VIII to this Annex.
M.A.803(c) Scope
(c) The scope of the limited Pilot-owner maintenance shall be specified in the aircraft maintenance programme referred to in point M.A.302.
M.A.803(d) Records
(d) The CRS shall be entered in the aircraft continuing airworthiness record system and contain basic details of the maintenance carried out, the maintenance data used, the date on which that maintenance was completed, as well as the identity, the signature and pilot licence number of the pilot-owner issuing such a certificate.
AMC M.A.803 Pilot-owner authorization
1. Privately operated means the aircraft is operated pursuant to M.A.201(i).
2. A Pilot-owner may only issue a CRS for maintenance he/she has performed.
3. In the case of a jointly-owned aircraft, the maintenance programme should list:
— The names of all Pilot-owners competent and designated to perform Pilot-owner maintenance in accordance with the basic principles described in Appendix VIII of Part-M. An alternative would be the maintenance programme to contain a procedure to ensure how such a list of competent Pilot-owners should be managed separately and kept current.
— The limited maintenance tasks they may perform.
4. An equivalent valid pilot licence may be any document attesting a pilot qualification recognised by the Member State. It does not have to be necessarily issued by the competent authority, but it should in any case be issued in accordance with the particular Member State’s system. In such a case, the equivalent certificate or qualification number should be used instead of the pilot’s licence number for the purpose of the M.A.801(b)2 (certificate of release to service).
5. Not holding a valid medical examination does not invalidate the pilot licence (or equivalent) required under M.A.803(a)1 for the purpose of the Pilot-owner authorisation.
Can a licenced pilot without a valid medical certificate perform pilot-owner maintenance?
This question arises because of the different understandings of license validity in Commission Regulation (EU) No 1178/2011 This question arises because of the different understandings of license validity in Commission Regulation (EU) No 1178/2011 (Aircrew) and No 1321/2014 (Continuing Airworthiness).
In Reg. (EU) 1321/2014, the pilot-owner authorisation described in M.A.803 or ML.A.803 assumes that a pilot has sufficient technical knowledge to perform certain maintenance tasks. While exercising such pilot-owner authorisation, the pilot-owner even further develops his/her competency in maintenance. Hence, in the case where the medical examination has not been conducted or not been passed and the licence has therefore lost its validity, it is the intent of the rule to allow the pilot-owner to continue using this authorisation as long as he/she still considers himself/herself physically fit (including good visual acuity) and competent to carry out such maintenance (ref. point (a)(2) of Appendix VIII to Part-M or Appendix II of Part-ML).
This is the reason why a new point (5) was introduced in AMC M.A.803 in 2016 (ED Decision 2016/011/R) stating: “not holding a valid medical examination does not invalidate the pilot licence (or equivalent) required for the purpose of the pilot-owner authorisation”. For Part-ML the same information can be found in AMC1 ML.A.803 (ED Decision 2020/002/R).