That coincides exactly with what I was told at SA CAA late last year, 2007.
I was told that, from somewhere around May, 2008, one of the consequences of Part 61 would be that the candidate for an initial ATPL flight test, would have to fly the exercise in a multi crew aircraft over 5,700kgs weight, either a jet or a turbine.
I was also told that for an ATPL renewal this did not apply because the renewal of an ATPL was, in effect, an Instrument Rating renewal.
A long time ago in South Africa, but very much within my flying memory, an ATPL was a licence that most pilots needed and thus obtained only when the prospect of a promotion to the LHS in an airline type two crew operation presented itself. Then the charter queens started demanding that all their charter pilots had ATPLs because it sounded like a better licence, then the insurance companies jumped on the bandwagon. I can well remember discussions with Rossair and NAC charters at Rand in the late seventies trying to convince the ladies who ran those respective charter outfits that one did not need an ATPL to fly a C310 commercially, that a CPL/IR was perfectly satisfactory, legal and sufficient. Furthermore, in those days there were a lot of CPLs about with rather more hours in their logbooks than actuality. The insistence on an ATPL placed the onus for policing real hours firmly into the lap of what was then DCA (Department of Civil Aviation) in Pretoria.
In actual fact, an ATPL is unnecessary unless one is going to function as a Captain in a two crew operation, over 5,700kgs etc. A CPL is a perfectly good licence for all other operations other than 'airline'. An ATP flight test used to be carried out as part of the command training course. So the effect of this legislation or decision is to return the tiers of licences to the status quo ante, which many would argue is where it should be. It certainly favours the logical progression of aviation experience and safety, from licence issue to instructor, to charter pilot, to two cew operation, thus enhancing the possibilities of an aviation learning curve rather than a jump straight from the licensing office in to the right hand seat of a sophisticated turbo prop
