To keep your licence current, you need to use your certification privileges for at least 6 months within the last 2 years. This can be achieved by:
- working continuously for at least 6 months, exercising the privileges mentioned in the Part 66 Manual of Standards (MOS) for your licence or for a rating endorsed on your licence, or
- gaining at least 550 hours of experience in using those privileges.
If you can’t meet this recent experience requirement, you can requalify your licence by satisfying requirements under 66.A.23 of the Part 66 MOS. You need to provide evidence that either:
- you have carried out maintenance (as an aircraft maintenance engineer) of the kind that would be covered by the privileges of the licences you hold, for at least 100 days, or
- you have been assessed by an approved maintenance training organisation (MTO) to certify that you continue to have the knowledge and skills necessary to hold your aircraft engineer licence with the ratings on the licence, or
- you have been assessed by an approved maintenance organisation (AMO), or a CAR 30 maintenance organisation, to determine that you continue to maintain the required knowledge and skills necessary for the licence and ratings your hold.
Employer responsibility
Your employer (either an AMO / CAR 30 organisation) must ensure you are suitably trained, qualified and competent on the aircraft and aircraft systems you will certify, prior to being authorised as a certifying employee.
As Part 66 and Part 145 of CASR are ‘outcome based’ rules, we require an AMO to indicate in their exposition how they will address this.
The AMO will need to include a procedure for how they will requalify their LAMEs – ensuring they continually meet the 6 in 24 requirements.
They can also include procedures within their exposition or CAR 30 system of quality control for requalifying individuals that don’t meet the 6 in 24 requirement. These procedures must be based on the Australian competency-based training (CBT) standards and ensure that the individual continues to have the knowledge and skills necessary for the holder of an aircraft engineer licence with the ratings on the licence.
When adding these procedures, the AMO or CAR 30 must follow their system of quality control or exposition amendment process.
The AMO or CAR 30 and the individual should also keep adequate records to substantiate the assessment.
For more information on requalification requirements see Part 145 Manual of Standards (145.A.35 (c) and Part 66 AMC/GM (GM66.A.23).