JAR 66 Engineer or Technician?

[The Weasel]

Vintage ppruner's have probably read all this before,but please bear with me for the sake of us newer members.
It is rumoured that the reason the JAA are re-titling Engineers to Technicians is to align terminology with other engineering industries.I have heard that from June 1st we are NOT allowed to call ourselves Engineers unless we hold a degree in the subject. Can anyone confirm this?
If standardisation is the reason,then can we assume that planning and quality Engineers etc will also have to align with this standard? Will maintenance organisations & manufacturers have to rewrite all their procedures & manuals to reflect the new terminology?
It does seem strange that change of terminology should be a priority for regulators of an industry so rife with maintenance violations (some of which can be read about in pprune, no less).However, rather than challenging those paid far more than me, I shall demonstrate my apparent interest by asking how this will affect me when using such items as an Engineer's square and Engineer's blue. Do I now have to call in someone from an office, with a degree, to mark out repair cut lines etc, or will these items have their descriptions changed to align with the new standard?
Lastly, suppose my wife has to call the service centre because the new washing machine has croaked.Should she expect an Engineer or Technician to attend? It seems unlikely that anyone who has taken the trouble to educate themselves to degree standard would be swanning around in a van doing houshold appliance repair callouts.

[This message has been edited by The Weasel (edited 09 March 2001).]

[Golden Rivet]

Are Flight Engineers going to be renamed Flight Technicians ? Cant see them allowing that to happen.

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Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread

[lame]

Also I suppose I will have to change my username to "LAMT".

[Blacksheep]

I'm a Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer as long as it says so on the beautiful maroon and gold cover of my UKCAA "grandfather rights" licence. And I have no intention of changing until they prise it from the fingers of my cold dead hands.

So there!

**********************************
Through difficulties to the cinema

[Mike Echo]

I think you will find this was very heavily influenced by some of the European members of the JAA. I understand that in Germany you cannot call yourself an engineer unless you have a degree, possibly a German member can enlighten us. The academic content of JAR66 is/was strongly influenced by European members, but many have a distinct advantage of having maintenance training funded by the state.
Until the Head of Technician Licensing at Gatwick takes it away I'll remain a LAME.

[Ali Crom]

So much for the CAA saying its down to the industry not them to promote the profession & to try to address the problem of dwindling numbers.
If our local Borough Council can increase the status & therefore numbers of our unskilled dustmen by changing their job titles to ' Refuse Technicians 'then why are the CAA/JAA prepared to relegate ours to that of someone who collects household waste for a living?
I remember this subject being brought up in a letter to the ALAE recently & the author asked the question , what would happen if they renamed the Captain & F/O - Driver 1 & Driver 2? What a backlash that would proke so it just wouldn't happen .

My view is that there seems to be an increasingly Victorian , snobbish attitude towards us true Engineers by the powers that be & that they seem to think the only people who should be exclusively entitled to be afforded the title 'Engineer' are ones who have attended university & who have a degree.
With this obsession of high academic qualifications over practical skill & knowledge being the only route to achieving professional status, can anybody out there settle the arguement as to which of the two qualifications is the harder to attain. 1) The LWTR ( pre JAR 66 ) or 2) Degree. ?
Of course now with JAR 66 it would also appear that the current lowering of standards now blatently obvious as far as dropping penalty marking , written essays , orals etc are concerned this could fuel the argument that the Degree would be the harder of the two but I could be wrong.

[jetfueldrinker]

In our place, everyone on the hangar floor does the job of a thchincian weather licensed or not. They seek our MM and IPC references, research problems and tasks, and to the most part, get on with the job unsupervised. But we are not allowed to call ourselves 'Technicans' but 'Tradespersons'. How demeaning is that? To my mind 'Mechanic' is the bloke in Quickfit who will change your exhaust pipe. He will work under supervision and instructions from his supervisor. He will not be that familiar with the administration side of the job, but he will be good with spanners and hammers. 'Technician' on the other hand, will know a bit more about the job, the planning and prioritising of work; he will be educated to a high standard, and will be an expert in his field. If he doesn't know for sure how to go about doing a job in a certain way, then he will be able to find out without too much bother. But as for 'Tradesperson', the term conjures up images of the bloke knocking on your door, asking if you want your lawn mower blade sharpening. A Jack of All Trades so to speak. I feel that this goes a long way explaining exactly what our management think of us. But at the end of the day (how I hate that expression), we in the business of maintaining aircraft have qualifications in one discipline. ENGINEERING!

[This message has been edited by jetfueldrinker (edited 09 March 2001).]

[SEWER RAT]

From Dictionary.com.
Engineer:
1. One who is trained or professionally engaged in a branch of engineering.
2. One who operates an engine.
3. One who skillfully or shrewdly manages an enterprise.
So from this we are covered by no 1 and the pilots can be called engineers (air) as covered by no 2 cos thats all they do now.
And while we're on the subject the managers are covered by no 3, so everyone can be called engineers, degree or not, that'll stop the argueing.


[This message has been edited by SEWER RAT (edited 09 March 2001).]

[ragspanner]

in accordance with british common law an individual can give themselves & use any title as long as it is not for any fraudulent purpose but i advise legal advise before using HRH !.

[Diablo]

Does that apply to companies as well. The won't be employing a group of engineers anymore, "Monarch Technicianing", "Virgin Atlantic Technicianing", "British Airways Technicianing". Change for changes sake or political correctness.

Any more rumours on it being changed to Personchester Airport ???

[spannerhead]

What was I the other night when I was retrieving a nappy trapped under the bog dump valve? (a mug you may say). A lot of you seem to be worried about what other people will think. "Oh, he's only a technician or a mechanic" You'll still be doing the same job so why fret. What's in a name?

[DoctorA300]

Spannerhead,
Thank you
Brgds
Doc

[aeroguru]

Sanitary systems consultant?

[The Weasel]

Spannerhead, What's in a name you ask.Well I asked myself that too and it left me wondering why the regulators would be bothering changing the system unless there was an underlying reason.As others have confirmed in this thread, in Germany a degree is necessary to allow you to call yourself an engineer.Presumeably this applies to aircraft engineering as well as generally. If this is the case then the JAA have shown their true hand ie, they have used the term technician to allow a lowering of standards for acceptance into the profession.Huh, so that's their response to the worldwide shortage of engineers.The situation is similar in the UK. OK so we have never had to have a degree to hold an AMEL but look around you...Mechanical and Avionics used to be totally seperate trades.The unions kept each trade apart, such that Avionics would not even dare remove an access panel and Mechanics would not remove a component's electical connector.I did'nt agree with such inefficient use of personnel,but the situation has changed so much and so suddenly as to be dangerous. Up until recently avionic extensions were very rare and only to be used away from base. Now all of a sudden, just in time for June 1st everyone and his dog has got one, after a one week or so course.( The dog was an intended pun, as a few years ago during the previous engineer shortage, a certain newspaper printed the story that a certain airline employed dog handlers for aircraft maintenance).There is no way that Avionics can be learnt in such a short time with experience to have been gained in addition to carrying out your usual full day's responsibilities. The subject is a career in itself.The problem is compounded by some peoples lack of integrity in allowing themselves to falsify their experience, all helped along by the fast approaching June 1st.
The authorities are probably patting themselves on the back for 'resolving' the engineer shortage by making us all dual trade, spreading us even more thinly.
Spannerhead, if you are clearing off dump valves then at least you only have to suffer s**t up to your elbow's.The way things are going at present, you are about to get it legislated onto you from a great height by your own regulatory authority! I have heard rumours that the next scam is to be a possible reduction in the need for duplicate inspections. Who Knows what else they have up their sleeves to ensure that supply & demand does not come into play and get us a pay rise.

[time-ex]

I know, I've been there, done that, I wear the T-shirt, but what did you do next? Top up the O2, fix the IFE, run all 4 engs to check for leaks from the fuel filters that you just changed? Give yourself credit! Select your own title!

[SchmiteGoBust]

AliCrom,
Just a quick answer to your question about which is harder to obtain,a degree or LWTR. A degree takes less overall effort to obtain than a licence in my opinion. However a degree involves much heavier brain ache in places!!!

[spannerhead]

Time-ex
You are correct when you talk about the multitude of other tasks that we carry out, but even running engines (with some operators) on the new generation A/C is a limited and simple task for the avionic trades. They, as you probably know have auto start features which will even auto crank the engine in the event of a hot start. These A/C were designed by the real engineers to relieve the workload on the pilots and the maintenance staff. The Airbus family will spit a bit of paper out on landing and tell you what failures occured, probable causes, in a roundabout way tell you the P/N of the failed item and give you the troubleshooting manual reference. All of these have to be manually done on convential A/C. Remember throttle rigging on the Spey, Tyne and Dart engines? (Could be a bit of a nightmare if you didn't do it often). Nowadays with fadec controlled engines you only need to carry out a leak check post engine change. The whole maintenance industry has been dumbed down by black boxes full of PFM, designed by some very clever people and replaced (only when the A/C tells you to) by you and me. With the advancement of technology, our job is gradually getting much more simple.