Applying for EASA part 147 approval

EASA part 147 is about approved maintenance training organisation. It contains the requirements to be made to set up an approved school to train aircraft maintenance personnel. The requirements include the facilities, personnel and the training process. The organisation has to write a policy and procedure manual known as "maintenance training organisation exposition" (MTOE) giving detail process of training.

So my aviation school had submitted the MTOE to the Civil Aviation Authority. We waited for about two weeks and since we did not receive any response, we called the person in charge. His response was, " a team is looking at our application.

When the response was received, we felt a bit down as there was too many comments that need to be corrected. The new team at the Civil Aviation office was doing a very thorough job. Some of their comments are given below:

a. The percentage of practical training is not in compliance to the part 147 requirement.

We looked at the requirement about the training hours for Cat A. The requirements says, the minimum training hours is 800, and 70% is practical and 30% theory.

We did the analysis, the total is 800 hours, and 70% training means 560 hours. As we want to make sure that the students understand, we had increase the total training hours to 1000, so this was how we calculate:

a. Minimum hours is 800, so the minimum practical is 560hours and theory is 240 hours.

b. We conducted 1000 hours, but we use the 560 for practical hours and 440 for theory.

This was not acceptable as the guide says that the practical is 70%, and the authority interpreted is to the letter that 700 hours practical and 300 hours theory.

Our Application for EASA part 147 approval is still pending. More requirements have to be complied. Our local airworthiness authority wanted us to include the setting of independent exam center mainly for our own students and external participants.