The PTS is not mentioned because that is not the requirement (using the civil experience route). To get the sign off to take the exams, the applicant must provide documented experience with at least 50% of the subject areas in FAR 147 appendix B, C, and D. These are for the general, airframe, and powerplant. Check the fsims...Originally Posted by wa4eio
Everything you say is correct.
the question was..... how does a person with no prior experience or approved schools demonstrate to the FAA that they meet the qualifications to take the A&P tests.
My answer is that even if it is overkill, you show that you have the PTS/ACS covered.
‘Mornin’. This is where the extensive logging of your time and efforts in specific areas of the material come in. The referance to the PTS and new ACS are accurate and a good guidline. They ARE what the DME used to use to determine what tasks were to be performed during the oral and practical... the faa computer now choses the tasks but they follow the PTS. To be very specific you must show the FAA inspector that you can account for 18/18 mos AF/PP or 30 mos combined experience. A ‘month’ is 4 40 hr weeks, ie 160 hrs x 30 mos. working on FAA regulated (or military QUALITY plus FAA regs and methods). YOU may sign it off as certifying that these are your efforts. I would highly recommend that you work with at least one A&P to get supervision as to the level of work in the various areas. Trouble with being your own supervisor here is that, like these questions/answers you don’t know what you don’t know LOL IF you really are ready go back to my origonal post. Find and buy the FAA sponsored TEXTBOOKS and begin the STUDY. You really do need a working, hands on knowlege of each and every chapter and verse in these texts. That’s not to say you have to memorize the whole of the texts but you are, as an A&P applicant responsible for that level and greadth of knowledge.
So can all this work out just like the building of your own plane? So I want my PP rating, can I just do a self overhaul and log the time? That is essentially what would happen at a school. And besides they won't get into nor do they likely know how to do an over haul on an R-2800 or R-4360, and just like with the kit plane deal there are many tools that may need to be fabricated etc. When building a kit plane you don't have some teacher looking over your shoulder.
And the way I see it if you are specific to either turbine or recip then they can not discriminate your hours, only the knowledge and ability like someone mentioned in one of the posts that he had no turbine time at all.
Last edited by enginesrus; 08-05-2018 at 07:18 PM.
Good morning. You are missing an undertsnding of the breadth and depth of the TEACHING that goes on in a 14cfr147 school. While it is true you would, in one (of about 15) modules disassemble, dimensionally and ndi inspect a recip engine. You would learn the correct way to clean, measure (and what tools and how to read them and their variants). You would re assemble the engine and while it might not be a runable engine the instructor has been lecturing on how it works, both in theory and in practice, with words of his/her years working in the field. Details worthy of that kind of lecture might include why some make and model engines have the oil control rings turned bevel up in some model/dash number of that engine and turned down in other varients. It is this level of comprehension and understanding of the service bulletins that allow a 147 school to do this teaching in a typical 15-20 mos vs 30 mos OJT. Another issue with building an amature built aircraft for FAA credit is that you must be working to FAA standards. The ‘POP’ rivets used in a Zenair and AirCams are great for an SAE standards design but you will never find ‘POP’ rivets in AC43-13 except as a non structural fastener. In school or in practice in OJT you will need to learn to properly identify the many common rivet materials, head shapes and styles and how to determine the number and size REQUIRED to make a correct rivet joint. Materials, the topic, as an example, are spread through the entire progra. If you add up the hours spent learning, being quizzed on and actually choosing and installing... and correctly UN installing... various fasteners you would find something like 40 hrs JUST on that subject. ALL of which is testable in both the written exam and the practical. IF... at the end of your self taught, TEXTBOOK oriented training you could take a collection of 20-30 various nuts, bolts rivets, cotter pins, clevis pins etc and CORRECTLY IDENTIFY each as to it’s AN/MS number to include it’s size and material AND demonstrate the correct installation of those you would get credit for that weeks work. Now you still have 14-19 more weeks if you are in a 147 program. If you are in an OJT program you woukd still have the same requirements only you woukd have had to learn the material by working with, reading about and ideally having a competent A&P judge your progress.
Yes, you could do this on your own but since you don’t know what you do ‘t know it’s hard to evaluate your own work. I got my A&P about 30+ years ago the OJT method but by the time I was ready to ask the FAA for their blessing to take the 3 written and two/three O&Ps I had logged major work (read ground up rebuild in a couple, wood spar splices and complete or partial recovering on other and some extensive engine work) on eleven aircraft. Included were numerous D C 3 controls, restoring the prototype Stits Playboy (N38K) helping on 1820’s and 1830’s, spicing my J5 Cub spar etc., overhauling the carb, mags and a couple of cylinders on that C85-12 all under the direct supervision of a number of gracious A&Ps . I had had military training AS A PILOT on the turbines in the Hueys I was flying and later the HH52s I was flying. In the end, while I had logged enough experience and time to qualify, to pass the writtens I used a test prep course Jennifer Baker.. the nice lady that now IS Baker’s School was doing courses on the road and came to us (in Kodiak,AK) and spent five very long days in prepping and seeing to our writtens. My practicals a few months later were with a DME that had been one of my many mentors and had signed for my work on a couple of the rebuilds... We still spent a fair bit of time examining my learning before he signed my temporary certificates. An A&P rating is the end result of a patient accumulation of a great deal of knowledge and skill learned one lesson at a time. Just building a kit built with todays quality of pre measured, pre drilled kits is excellent but not ALL of what you need. Now, scratch build a Falco or a Skybolt and then overhaul the engine you got ‘cheap’ from a friend... and make it fly.. and we’ll talk.
The FAA kinda-sorta proposed something like that during the 1990's re-write of Part 65, which would have been recodified as Part 66. It received so many negative comments the FAA withdrew the proposal.
Inspection Authorization or IA is only available to mechanics thatOne other question all I see is A&P rating here, cann't you still get one or the other alone? And what about an AI or IA what ever it is called now, can that be also had for one or the other? And then where does power plant stop and airframe begins, at the mount to fire wall? Or engine to mount?
1) Hold a currently effective mechanic certificate with both an airframe rating and a powerplant rating,
Do you have the pay stubs from the time you were employed there? The FAA will accept that. The experience does not have an expiration date.
What's needed is evidence that you have worked the equivalent of 18 or 30 months, which the FAA defines as 160 hrs per month. Specific skills at that point don't matter. The FAA definition for "practical experience" is quite broad, it says:
A. Practical Experience. The practical experience must provide the applicant with basic knowledge of and skills in the procedures, practices, materials, tools, machine tools, and equipment used in aircraft construction, alteration, maintenance, and inspection.
Nothing about kit planes or being proficient in overhauling a radial engine. You can work as a gopher in a maintenance shop for 30 months, removing and installing inspection panels, changing oil and tires and show evidence of meeting the required practical experience.
I completely agree with going to the FSDO and talking to an ASI to get examples of acceptable methods of documenting practical experience before starting. Could save a lot of problems down the road.
Okay first off, about the teaching deal at a school. I am over 60 and had worked on industrial engines for many years as a job though not aircraft. I also have over 20 some plus years of machinist experience, that is machine tools, I have done tool making and aircraft machinist, and aircraft wind tunnel model machinist work.
So learning to check parts and handle aircraft related parts is nothing new. All engine related info would be nothing new. Electrical ? 2 year equivalent electronics school many years ago, so, yeah could use some refresher stuff. Plus I did do my FBO job as a kid helping on R-1830's and R-2800's but for limited time, (I would have no problem timing the 4 magneto's on an R-4360 low tension ignition engine or valve adjustments on the same been there done that not at the FBO), job was a normal kid grunt work job though at the time I had many various automotive engine overhauls under my belt, as well as automatic transmissions and rear axles from back before and into high school days. The mention of various fasteners like riveting I do not know. Can certain aspects of the classes be challenged to cut down on some of the time?
Unfortunately, there is no credit for life experiences and no credit by exam like the college CLEP test that would allow one to bypass training by passing a test.
When I went to A&P school there were students age 60+ that had retired and simply wanted to earn an A&P certificate. Attending a school is the best deal for saving time because you can do the whole thing in ~19 months, if that is an option. There were some 1 yr schools around but they are usually pricey.
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