A&P License Completed

I finally completed my Airframe and Powerplant license! This was the culmination of an almost 3 year saga to complete all of the requirements to get the FAA Mechanic certificates. (See my previous blog posts for the details of attending A&P school). After I passed all of the written tests in June, you are required to take the Oral and Practical portions of the tests. These tests are administered by a DME (Designated Mechanic Examiner). You must contact a local DME, arrange for a time to take the tests, and complete all of the tasks that the FAA decides to have you perform.

It took me almost all of July and August to get the necessary sign offs and get scheduled with the DME. Oh, and you get to pay the DME what ever his rate is for the testing. Mine charged me $1050! The FAA also decided to completely change the testing standards from the old PTS to the new ACS version. New updated text books, test questions and test procedures all started in August 2023.

Scoring well on the written tests (aka, the knowledge tests) will now reduce the number of tasks needed in the Oral and Practicals. There are 3 components that you need to complete; General, Airframe and Powerplant. My 97% score on the General knowledge test resulted in me only having to answer 6 General Oral questions. My 96% score on the Airframe knowledge test was good for just 7 Airframe Oral questions. My 91% Powerplant knowledge test made for about 10 Powerplant Oral questions. You have to pass each Oral section with at least a 70% score. If your written tests were around the 70% minimum passing grade, you would have many more Oral questions asked. This means that if you scored high on the writtens, you really can’t miss more than one Oral questions and still get a 70% on the tests, but if you have lots of Oral questions, you can miss much more of them and still achieve 70%.

I showed up to the DME’s hangar and after checking over all of my paperwork, forms, sign-offs, ID, etc, he got started with the Oral questions. These questions are randomly selected from a test generator program that the FAA uses. The questions you get on the Orals are weighted more towards what you missed on the written knowledge tests.

I had been studying every day for the last month on all of the Oral test questions from the various ASA and Jeppesen guides. There are quite a few YouTube channels out there that also have great resources for test prep. These study guides were the way to go, since almost all of the questions for my Orals were either straight out of the study guides, or similar but worded differently. The Oral tests for all 3 areas took me less than an hour to complete. I don’t think I missed any of the questions. Some questions were really easy.

• What is a capacitor? Two conductive plates with a dielectric between them.
• What is the order of mathematic operations? Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction.
• What type of cabin cooling uses a closed system? Vapor cycle.
• Why are some switches derated? High in-rush currents
• What are the main sections of a turbine engine? Compressor, combustion, turbine and exhaust.

I then had a bunch of General practical projects. The practical projects are open book, so you can refer to anything you need to accomplish the task. Along with each practical projects were two more oral questions related to the task. I don’t recall all of the practical projects, but there were about 9-12 per area. Some projects were very easy, and others were more technical and time consuming. The practicals are where they make sure that you are able to research the task, find the appropriate document to follow, and are physically able to perform the task with the necessary tools. My first General practical was to use an ohmmeter to measure the resistance of a heated pitot tube element. Others were to measure a voltage drop across a load, look at a drawing for a part and determine the materials needed to fabricate it, and to fill out a logbook entry and Form 337 for a major alteration (supplemental type certificate).

After getting through the General practicals, we moved to the Airframe practicals. More tasks like inspecting control cables, starting an airplane, performing hand signals for ground operations, inspecting the position lights, and researching Airworthiness Directive compliance. For a couple of the added oral questions I did have to open the book to find the answer, such as what is the minimum breaking strength of a 3/16″ diameter 7X19 extra-flexible control cable? You have to know where to find the data, in this case a table in the AC43.13-1B book (4200 pounds).

The weather was very hot (103F) and we were in a metal hangar. I was able to go and get a lunch break and then rehydrate a bit before starting on the Powerplant practicals. I did about half of them before we stopped for the day around 3pm.

I arrived the next day at 8:30am and I was able to get all of the Powerplant practicals completed before noon. The practicals were things like inspecting an engine mount for airworthiness, inspect an exhaust system for cracks, inspect cylinder fins, dress a nick in a propeller blade, mount an alternator on an engine, etc. I had missed a couple of turbine related questions on the Powerplant written test, so there were lots of turbine related practicals, but since the DME didn’t have a turbine engine for me to do something with, it was mostly looking up information on how to service turbine accessories and how to perform fuel control changes (everything now days is electronically done via FADEC or a laptop program). Some of the FAA questions relate to very ancient technologies that are seldom ever seen today.

After getting through all of the practicals with no obvious failures, the tests were complete! I was able to finish up before noon, so overall it was about a day and a half of testing. Now I have a temporary certificate that is good for 120 days and an official, final license should be coming in the mail soon.

So what am I going to do with the A&P? Good question! I will see what opportunities come around. I will be able to perform airframe and powerplant maintenance, annual condition inspections on Experimental and Light Sport aircraft, and 100 hour inspections on Certified aircraft. I can’t do annuals on Certified aircraft unless I get the Inspection Authorization (IA) rating, which requires at least 3 years of being an A&P first. The IA is good to have, but harder still to get. It requires that you perform a certain amount of maintenance work each year to get and to keep.

I also got my official diploma in August, and 3 other course completion “certificates” suitable for framing.