Compass cards no longer needed?

[Jim Logajan]

I didn't get the memo, but it seems that for the past few years the requirement for compass deviation cards in smaller aircraft has been silently removed:

https://www.wificfi.com/post/addendums-vfr-airworthiness-requirements
https://www.holladayaviation.com/magnetic-compass-qa/

I found this FAA document which explains their updated philosophy:

As explained in the NPRM, the former regulations that required airspeed, altimeter, and magnetic direction were redundant with the operating rules, specifically §§ 91.205 and 135.149. Furthermore, they required prescriptive design solutions that were assumed to achieve an acceptable level of safety. These prescriptive solutions precluded finding more effective or more economical paths to providing acceptable safety. One of the stated goals of the proposal was to facilitate the introduction of new technologies into small airplanes. Concepts already envisioned with fly-by-wire system may render the instruments that were required by former § 23.1303 irrelevant in the future. New § 23.2615 reflects the intent to allow new technologies in the future, while maintaining a minimum safety requirement by capturing the safety intent of the former regulations and by relying on the operating rules and accepted means of compliance to prescribe the details. This philosophy also applies to the comment on the phrase “as needed.” The accepted means of compliance, which may include industry consensus standards, will define which parameters need trends.

I only discovered this change because my C-172 is leased to a flying club that a CFI is using to teach student pilots and the plane didn't have a compass correction card. He wanted the plane to pass an examiner's airworthiness check when a student finally takes their check ride in the plane. The lease makes me responsible for keeping it airworthy, so it was my job to have the compass swung and correction card made. Since the plane had been declared airworthy after a pre-buy at one shop and an annual at another I went researching for regulatory confirmation