It can be brought back to certified, but it's not economically viable. It's basically overhauling every last little thing and certifying conformity to the TC. As the owner maintenance CoA is not recognized anywhere else, it drastically restricts selling it.
Except that with OM, you're starting with a type-certified airplane that has been verified as meeting type design. It doesn't have Home Depot wing spars in it, or sketchy Chinese hardware. Its welding and riveting will be at least acceptable. It would take a lot longer for it to become a mess like a sloppy, corner-cut, cheaped-out plans-built. No doubt we will hear of one someday, but we also hear of ratty homebuilts crashing. It comes down to the attitude of the owner, and that's where the laws place the responsibility for airworthiness on all aircraft.
I think the idea that $40K is not a good salary for a first job in a career field is silly, but I'm coming from a background of making between $2-$5K less than $30K a year, so that probably affects my perception of a good salary.Even with that wage, I was able to almost completely pay off my student loans, buy two cars (granted, they were older cars), and get my PPL within three years of graduating college.
I would be willing to hazard a guess that the shortage has a lot to do with a general disinterest in aviation and wanting to avoid being sued out of house and home for something that may not even be your fault (like when pilots run out of gas and sue the manufacturer even though they crashed because they didn't fill up the tanks).
What's the difference between 24 or 30 months of training/ experience vs 4 years going to college? I know a few younger teachers with 2-3 years at their district and they're sub 45k a year. One has a masters. And our county is one of the highest in the country with 78% going to school districts.
The ones I've seen are quite nice. Snap-on partners with various schools and offers student tools kits at a substantial discount to the schools. Marketing genius in my opinion.
And its getting worse. Snap-on is pimping out to certain governmental agencies and private operators who require tool control programs and are taking your addiction to the next level. Level 5 that is. The kicker is all the money a mechanic spent on their tools is moot and they have to take their tools home and use the company provided Level 5 boxes. Glad I don't need to play that dog and pony show anymore. A mechanic and their tools......
In what specific manner? If talking independent mechanics, yes provided they have insurance. However, from what I've seen it usually ends the mechanic's provider offering a settlement then upping the mechanics rates or dropping their coverage if the loss was substantial. After GARA passed and took the OEM pockets out of the picture per se, individual mechanics were moved up in the food chain to pursue from a plaintiffs standpoint. It also caused our insurance rates to skyrocket or for underwriters to stop writing mechanic freelance policies.
) -- I assume only the bottom third of the flying public or so would take that deal, and I suspect those are the clients every shop wants no part of.
^^^^This. Or only large CRS shops will be left. There are some exceptions but they're more region specific.
One solution that has become a bit more popular on the standalone side is dropping all insurance and take the target off their back while being very selective of the work they perform. I know a one-man turbine shop who carries no insurance and when he gets swept up in a plaintiffs net hires a guy to attend the first couple meetings just find out the details. Then he's done with it. Hasn't failed him yet. Same with a few others I know and they're all booked solid for work. So it appears to be a solution for some people.
Ha. No. They have assets and live good. It helps when the state protects your homestead and certain retirements accounts from debt. And as you said, the standalone side is becoming a boutique industry especially for the mechanics that are on top of their game. Charge a monthly fee to join the club and the basics are covered. If I was still in the hunt its what I would have done as it was very similar to my owner-assist process without the monthly secret squirrel fee. But there are still a number of owners out there that accept a 20 minute annual sign off so it becomes harder for a legit shop to make a decent go at it. Go back to the FSDO directly managing the IAs and this, IMHO, will self correct itself... but at what cost to the GA community I don't know at this point.
There is an opportunity for more specialized training and certification IMO. That would reduce the time and cost. The A&P curriculum, as I understand it, is very broad. If you could focus on say Piston Engines only, or composite vs. fabric, etc. it could help out the situation. The shortage could shift the scales more towards experimentals given the ability for builder maintenance.
The problem is that the airplane is a unit. Everything in it has something to do with the rest of it. Yes, there are mechanics that specialize in engines or fabric or airframe structures, but the typical A&P has to know something about everything, much like the MD who is a general practitioner, the one that sees the patient first and sorts out 98% of the problems, referring the tougher stuff to the specialists. We need a lot of GPs, not so many specialists.
There's no requirement to get both an A and P. A number of people have only one certificate. So its available right now. However, when you get outside working in the specific areas under an A or P you then start needing a second A&P to sign off the approve for return to service. Same issue with any further "specializing" of each certificate. But you must also keep in mind the A&P requirements are also driven by international agreements which have bearing on how we manage the FAA mechanic certifications. As it stands now the FAA Airframe or Powerplant or A&P certificates are the most flexible and easiest maintenance certifications to obtain of any CAA in the world by far. However, the issue isn't so much the certification process but the general lack of interest in becoming an A&P. The same issues are happening in every country and there is talk to reduce the overbearing EASA mechanic requirements due to the mechanic shortage or allow an FAA A&P to count as credit toward an EASA Part 66 license.
There was an NPRM for a new Part 66 around the 90s that was started as a means of making the FAA certifications more inline with the JAA/EASA Part 66 requirements. It was to create 3 mechanic certification categories based on aircraft weight and type operation. I believe for aircraft above 12,500lbs it also required the mechanic to be typed in the aircraft model series. It failed miserably for the simple reason the entire US aviation industry joined togather and defeated it before it got out the gate. The only thing that I think survived was they dropped the term "mechanic" and adopted the term Aircraft Maintenance Technician or AMT. Be thankful that didn't happen as it would have been the end of GA as few mechanics would have stayed in the lower category.
Canada has four categories M1 (non-turbojet airplanes and helicopters under 12,566 lb, which is 5700 kg), M2, which covers all aircraft of 12,566 and over, and turbojets. Then there's the E license, which is avionics. And the S ticket covers structures. These four categories were created to simplify the complex system that evolved earlier and ended up with at least 17 categories. When I wrote the exams for my license, they hadn't consolidated the exams yet, to match the category consolidations, and I wrote ten of them. Lots of fun, about $750 worth of it.
Does it still require to get OJT/typed in two different aircraft models before you can work on any other models? About 25 years ago I looked into getting an AME for helicopters and I seem to recall one requirement was I needed to document work under another AME for two different model series before I could work alone. It was this requirement that I didn't pursue it as I couldn't get that experience in the time frame needed for the job.
Back when I 1st got into aviation in the early 80s, the Dept of Labor classified all occupations as unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled. Within the same timeframe those classifications were dropped and a different system was used where an A&P became a "skilled" position. I don't know about the politician angle but I seem to recall it had more a "union" angle that singled out trades without a formal union type apprenticeship program. But who knows. Regardless, there were a number of articles written about it and I also seem to recall every time (3x) they tried to unionize my day job shop this was brought up and subsequently thrown back into their face as no longer correct. The shop is still not unionized.
That's part of the AMO regulations. Approved Maintenance Organizations, like the FAA Repair Stations, working on Commercially-registered aircraft. But the regs are a bit looser than that, with TC requiring the AMO to approve its mechanics.
Valued by the marketing department, apparently.
