PLANE TALK
DOM AND TECHNICIAN PROFESSIONALISM
BY ROGER BEEBE
OVER A LONG AVIATION CAREER ONE SEES A LOT OF SUCCESS AND FAILURES LINKED TO PROFESSIONALISM OR THE LACK THEREOF. I WONDER IF PROFESSIONALISM IS THE RIGHT WORD OR SHOULD I BE USING AN OLDER ONE TO EXPLAIN WHAT I WANT TO DISCUSS, LIKE AIRMANSHIP? ONE DEFINITION I FOUND IS AS FOLLOWS. “AIRMANSHIP IS THE CONSISTENT USE OF GOOD JUDGMENT AND WELL-DEVELOPED SKILLS TO ACCOMPLISH FLIGHT OBJECTIVES. THIS CONSISTENCY IS FOUNDED ON A CORNERSTONE OF UNCOMPROMISING FLIGHT DISCIPLINE AND IS DEVELOPED THROUGH SYSTEMATIC SKILL ACQUISITION AND PROFICIENCY. A HIGH STATE OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS COMPLETES THE AIRMANSHIP PICTURE AND IS OBTAINED THROUGH KNOWLEDGE OF ONE’S SELF, AIRCRAFT, ENVIRONMENT, TEAM AND RISK”. ONE CAN MODIFY THIS TO FIT MAINTENANCE BY SIMPLY SUBSTITUTING MAINTENANCE FOR FLIGHT
Professionalism refers to the methods, characteristics and attitudes of a person performing a task that requires higher education or advanced training. The noun professionalism is usually used to describe the type of behavior you would expect from them. Regardless of the word chosen, I will look at the characteristics and behaviors expected of aviation technicians and directors of maintenance in today’s aviation environment. If you have followed my articles in
D.O.M., you know that I wrote about attributes needed to advance in the aviation field. Another article spoke to the reasons why governments round the world standardized training, technician certification and licensing. Hopefully this all fits together in some understandable manner.
TECHNICIAN
PROFESSIONALISM The first step in being a professional technician is to ensure you are as well educated and trained as possible in
aircraft knowledge. This includes a thorough understanding of aircraft, engines and aircraft sub-systems, emergency procedures, avionics, theory of flight, etc. In addition, one must develop the necessary hand skills to repair aircraft and systems which requires troubleshooting analytical skills. A professional technician must attain a high level of knowledge of their environment. This includes understanding their physical environment as well as the societal, regulatory environment they work in. They need to understand the organizational environment, including company and corporate culture. The advent of mandatory human factors training in many countries really brought to the attention of the technicians that subjects which were contained in supervisor or manager education and training also applied to them. Gordon Dupont, a fellow D.O.M. contributor and well-known educator in the field, can attest to the fact that human performance directly affects professionalism or the lack thereof. The Dirty Dozen covers them all. Being just good enough,
complacency, failure to follow procedures and following negative company norms can undermine your efforts to be professional. The proof lies in many accident reports and enforcement actions where well- meaning and technically-competent technicians and licensed individuals fell foul of one of the human factors which led to the unfortunate event. Professional technicians need to
have an in-depth understanding of risk, including understanding the risks to discipline, skill and knowledge. They need to be able to do simple, in-the-head risk analysis in real time as well as doing more complicated analysis as required. This can be as simple as having someone check your work, or going back to see if I really did close that panel, or more complex risk assessments using written analysis. Professional technicians are ones who continue to develop their technical skills by continuous education, taking advantage of all possible employer training, including attending college courses in their own time. Physical skills cannot be neglected and proper attention
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DOMmagazine.com | oct nov 2016
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