The Future of Aircraft Maintenance in Australia

[old man emu]

While doing some research for a course I'm doing, I came across this extensive report into the future of aircraft maintenance in Australia.

 

http://www.alaea.asn.au/FutureAircraftMaintenance_201511271515_Final.pdf

 

This document is well worth making a fresh cuppa and settling down to read.

 

My interest is in the conflict between the pathways taken by two Federal Departments (CASA and the Department of Education) in relation to the training a person has to have to meet the standards required to be employed in aircraft maintenance either as an AME or LAME. (I'd suggest that the minimum standard for an RAA L2 would be equivalent to an AME). You can read about this in Chapter 9.

 

The document contains quite a lot of interesting statistics about Australia's aircraft fleet, and maintenance matters in general. It does deal a bit with maintenance for 'heavies' and RPT, but that's easy to skip over. It raises the idea of a "Small Aircraft Licence" which would be suitable for people maintaining aircraft below 5000kg in GA (and RAA).

 

Old Man Emu

 

 

[old man emu]

Perhaps people have been put off by the size of the above file, but I think that a discussion, at least, of what skills we want our AMEs and L2s to have, is very relevant.

 

Australian maintenance qualifications must be globally integrated through complete alignment with International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) training and licence standards; teething problems in the introduction of the new licensing and training system must be quickly addressed. Whatever standards CASA is pushing for, it would be foolish to think that the knowledge a person certifying any RAA aircraft as airworthy possesses should not be based on the same or similar standards as someone doing the same for a VH registered airplane.

 

The problem facing us at the moment is that CASA has not confirmed what level of competence it requires in AMEs, and how that competence is to be assessed. As a result, we have a group of apprentices racing to finish their training and building their Statements of Experience under the old scheme based on a Certificate IV qualification level by July 2020, and another group of younger apprentices who will have to complete a higher level qualification (Diploma) to be eliglible for licensing.

 

At present Cert IV is on the course lists of TAFE and private companys (Registered Training Organisations). The RTOs offer full time courses of about 52 weeks duration, and a cost of approximately $4000. (TAFE will do it for $1500). The Diploma course to become a LAME is longer and hence more expensive.

 

OME

 

 

[gandalph]

Thanks for the link OME. A very interesting read.