Homeguard is right - the CofA is gone but the maintenance requirements (actual maintenance performed since the last Annual etc) have replaced the piece of paper.
JXK - interesting stuff you have found; only a few days old...
The person undergoing the said test shall be:
i) registered as the sole owner of the said aircraft;
ii) the spouse [or child] of the registered sole owner;
iii) a director of a limited company which is the registered owner of the said
aircraft; or
iv) a joint owner of the aircraft or a registered shareholder of the company which
owns the aircraft, owned in accordance with Article 162(2) of the Order;
The CAA have changed the rules again then. So, now, it is more or less anybody with a direct-family or ownership connection.
What happened to the requirement for a 5% minimum shareholding on a Private Cat? The whole reason (fairly obviously) that was put in there was to stop flying schools training in Private Cat planes.
Foxmoth:
PPL instruction is certainly possible for the PPL on your own aircraft, both through a school or by a freelance instructor. If the aircraft is wholly owned by the person learning (or direct family -e.g. son or daughter learning in fathers aircraft) then the maintenance to transport standard is not required. The instructor needs to be either part of or have his own FTO registration.
Doesn't your 1st sentence contradict the last? If the instructor is working through an FTO (which I believe he must, though I don't have a reference for it) then he isn't 'freelance'.
A 'freelance' instructor is one who has a JAA FI rating, a CPL/BCPL so he can receive payment (IF he receives payment - may not be the case), and works entirely alone.
Can anybody think of why the FTO connection is required? It seems to serve no 'quality control' purpose.
In FAA land, a freelance instructor can do all training. Nowadays he needs to be TSA registered. Can't train ab initio FAA PPL in UK airspace though unless the student either can be PIC when solo (on some other license he already holds) or he has done the solo stuff within the conventional JAA/G-reg pipeline.