Back Shop Industry Insights: Rotorcraft Technician Certification

The importance of ensuring the airworthiness of helicopters cannot be overstated. Their ubiquitous presence in our daily lives lends a familiarity that we often take for granted.

Frequently, the indispensable aspects of life are the things we take most for granted. According to Maslow’s "Hierarchy of Needs," our basic safety need for stability, protection, order and assurance is second only to our most basic-life sustaining need for water, oxygen and protein. And yet, few of us have to give these needs a second thought during the normal course of our life.

But when disaster strikes, and it could strike any of us at any time, we will be relieved we hear the thump, thump, thump of rotor blades carrying our rescuers to return us to our formerly safe and stable lives. Helicopters saved the day for thousands during the recent Colorado blizzards, in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and following the Indonesian Christmas tsunami of 2004. Those major events are typical of the global natural disasters that require helicopters to restore safety and security. Automobile and boating accidents, burns, and other life threatening scenarios are examples of how helicopters constantly arrive in time to save the day — and our lives.

In order to continually justify the helicopter industry’s well-deserved public reputation, we must grow our technician workforce with the skills and experience necessary to guarantee the airworthiness of our growing and highly sophisticated fleet. To attract enough excellent helicopter technicians to meet future needs, we must focus on and identify the specific skills needed, provide a comprehensive and professional career path, and certify those professional skills according to industry-driven consensus standards of competence.

The number of women and men that ensure the airworthiness of our rotorcraft fleet is decreasing while the number of helicopters entering service is increasing. The source for most rotorcraft maintenance professionals is the same as that for the fixed wing fleet: from FAR Part 147 Aviation Maintenance Technology schools or from the military. But with an at-war military focused on retention and maintenance schools across the country closing at an alarming rate, the shortage of rotorcraft technicians will stymie industry growth without industry action. Even those that do remain open provide a generic maintenance education that spends only a cursory amount of time teaching the basic principles of helicopter flight and maintenance requirements.

However, I support only modest changes to the current FAA method of certificating Airframe and Powerplant mechanics. The curriculum should be removed from within the regulation and placed in an advisory document so that it can be updated via regular industry consensus to be representative of the current skills necessary in our rapidly advancing technology.

The FAA Airframe and Powerplant mechanic certificate offers excellent versatility. A rated mechanic may, according to Federal Aviation Regulation Part 65, "perform or supervise the maintenance, preventive maintenance or alteration of an aircraft or appliance, or a part thereof, for which he is rated," but only if "he has satisfactorily performed the work concerned at an earlier date...or shown his ability to do it." This is the dicey part of the regulation and one we must address.

The sophistication of our fleet, both rotary wing and fixed, is so advanced and we need an industry consensus standard of competence to articulate the state of our art and provide the necessary confidence in safety the flying public, and Congress, demands.

Rotorcraft is one industry in which maintenance technician certification will be most welcome. Just like our colleagues manipulating the flight controls and holding their own rotorcraft certificates, maintenance professionals perform highly refined skills that must conform to exact specifications. Unlike our flying counterparts, consensus standards are non-regulatory. Rotorcraft technician certification would be voluntary and more cost effective, establish advanced standards of competency, provide competitive edge, enhance employee loyalty, and reduce liability and workers compensation insurance premiums.

In order to maintain, grow, and guarantee the size and quality of this important safety infrastructure, the Professional Rotorcraft Aviation Maintenance Technician rating is needed. The Professional Aviation Maintenance Association (PAMA) is currently working, in our alliance with SAE International, to develop industry consensus standards for a comprehensive aviation maintenance career path. The professional rotorcraft technician is an integral part of that careerpath.