License to Learn

Back when I finally received my A&P certificate, I was told by the examiner, "Congratulations. You now have a license to learn." Little did I realize how prophetic those words would be.

Since then, I have found that the A&P certificate is little other than an introduction to a life-long educational process. The curricula of the Part 147 schools ensure that you learn quite a bit about 1930s technology, but little else. This is because changing anything that is embedded in the regulations requires an act of God. That’s the way bureaucracies work.

As a result, when you’re fresh out of school, all you have is the basic knowledge needed to work on planes that were designed before you were born, but a healthy enough respect for technology that you are nervous working on anything newer unless you have a mentor or additional training.

Today’s aviation technology is growing ten times faster than the regulations. That’s just the nature of an advanced society. In that environment, it’s impossible for the FAA-certificated schools to keep up with the industry. As a result, in governmental circles, there’s an effort afoot to change our licensing system to make it like that in Europe and Canada, with type ratings and different levels of certification. That was the thrust of the late Part 66 proposals that were soundly defeated, arguably because the Rulemaking Advisory Group charged with the proposals was out of touch with the A&P community.

Today we have the FAA, having had its fingers burnt by the FAR 66 debacle, going around that particularly thorny bush toward a "harmonization" effort with EASA and other authorities as far as maintenance technician/airworthiness engineer/A&P mechanic certification standards. Anything that comes out of this collaboration will be subject to international treaties that you will NOT be able to comment upon (except to your Congressperson) and that will, sure as God made little green apples, make your life much more complicated. You don’t think they’ll instead aim to simplify the EASA system, do you?

The bottom line is that soon, your A&P certificate will be marginalized to the point where, absent additional aircraft-specific education, your airworthiness certification authority will be limited to the most basic of aircraft, which generally means the lowest rung on the income charts

The silver lining to this situation is that if you have the advanced skills and education, you’ll be closer to the top of these charts as normal attrition occurs in the industry. There are fewer A&P schools now than there were a decade ago and the industry has done little to encourage new ones. By the time the airlines realize that they need to partner with FAR 147 schools to fill the ranks, it will be too late for some of them, who will have to ground flights and cut back on routes, simply because they cannot hire sufficient qualified technical staff to maintain their aircraft. We’ve already seen disruption of schedules due to inadequate maintenance staffing at major airlines, but we’ve yet to see the headhunters out there beating the bushes for new mechanics. It’s only a mater of time, though.

Typically, one of the benefits of skill shortages is that the individuals with advanced qualifications are paid commensurately. Ironically, most airlines are unionized and the bargaining agreements seldom allow sufficient flexibility for the airlines to pay more for advanced education.

One notable exception, however, is a major airline that pays more to A&P mechanics who have FCC General Radiotelephone licenses. When I attended that training session, 90 percent of the students were employees of that carrier. Look into that.

That leaves it is up to the individual to use his or her own initiative and view continuing education for self-fulfillment, rather than immediate financial gain.

One proof of how unions depress the real-world wages of their members can be found in the difference between airline (union) and corporate (non-union) salary levels for A&P mechanics.

Corporate mechanics are typically paid significantly higher salaries (up to 50 percent higher), enjoy comparable or superior benefits and are routinely sent to formal training courses at company expense for the aircraft they work on. This is the best proof of an aircraft mechanic’s true value to the employer. Having that FCC license on your resumé won’t hurt, either. Gulfstream experience and/or training is pure gold.

The bottom line is that beyond mechanic school, in today’s electronic systems environment, continuing education is essential to YOUR bottom line. Skills and education are your only job security. Your continuing education may be tax-deductible as well, just as it is for any other professional.