Training – Page 2 – AVIATION VOICES

By Christine Zylawski and Dr. Maggie Ma

The workforce shortage in aviation maintenance has been described as a “talent crisis.” AMT programs are struggling to hire and retain qualified faculty to train students. To add to the challenge, the Aviation Technician Education Council (ATEC) estimates that 30% of those who finish an aviation maintenance training course end up accepting employment in another industry.

The aviation industry is at the forefront of new technological developments, requiring personnel involved in aircraft maintenance to adapt to new methods, processes, knowledge and skills to build up the necessary competencies. These depend on new developments in training and information dissemination and should be constantly updated to the latest technology. The CBTA approach may improve training by better capturing the changing technology requirements. The CBTA programs will allow AMTs to be trained and evaluated against competency standards, with records as evidence. Such records may make it easier for maintenance organizations to employ personnel from other organizations and countries, which consequently facilitates harmonization.

First introduced at Air France Industries (AFI) in 2021, Competency-Based Training applied to Aircraft Maintenance operations (CBTAM) is an assessment and training method that focuses on developing specific knowledge and skills necessary for job performance. In fact, assessment takes place before training.

Many recent airline accidents have shown clear evidence of a common cause, whether from fatal crashes or devastating hull losses without fatalities. That common cause is the inability of the pilots, in far too many cases, to cope with the situation they have faced. Sometimes it was when the automatic systems failed, requiring them to fly manually. In others, they were trying to deal with what should have been a relatively benign situation and they simply did not cope.

Members of the Flight Operations Group (FOG) of the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) have been studying these matters for some time but individually, rather than as a group, with a common purpose. The members came together recently to discuss the reintroduction of the Boeing 737 MAX and what sort of training would be needed to achieve the best outcome. It very quickly became apparent that concerns about training standards on the MAX were not restricted to that aircraft alone. It was obvious that there is a need to review the way that pilots are trained to fly all types of public transport aircraft.

Tag: Training

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