Course approval is the authority's formal acceptance of a specific training course — its syllabus, manuals, aircraft and personnel — at an ATO or Part 141 school. Training delivered outside the approved scope does not count toward the licence, making version control of approved documents critical.
Course approval is the competent authority's formal acceptance of a specific training course at an ATO or Part 141 school: the syllabus, training and operations manual provisions, the aircraft and FSTDs used, and the personnel delivering it. The approval defines scope — an organisation is approved for these courses, in this form — and changes route through variation processes, with the significance of the change determining whether notification or prior approval applies.
Training delivered outside the approved scope does not count toward the licence, whatever its quality — which elevates version control of approved documents from librarianship to legal necessity.
Why it matters for flight schools
Course approvals are the commercial perimeter of an ATO: a new course is revenue that cannot be booked until the approval lands, and approval lead times belong in every launch plan. The audit exposure is the mirror image — records showing training that drifted from the approved version are findings with student-consequence, since the affected training may be invalid.
How FlightLogger handles it
FlightLogger ties training records to the specific approved syllabus version each lesson was flown against — so scope compliance is demonstrable per student, per lesson, at any audit.
Frequently asked questions
How long does course approval take?
Authority-dependent — weeks to months, scaling with course complexity and the authority's workload. Launch planning should treat the approval as a critical-path item, not an administrative afterthought.
What course changes require re-approval?
Significant changes — syllabus structure, key personnel, training devices — typically require prior approval; minor changes may run on notification. The organisation's approval terms define the split, and guessing wrong is itself a finding.