AirCraft Technician Training Helps Your Career Take Off

Manufacturers, airlines, aircraft maintenance companies and other Canadian aviation operations are places of employment within the aviation field for those trained as aircraft technicians. As they essentially hold human lives in their hands, these professionals must be accredited from reputable post-secondary institutions with high standards for graduation.

One of those schools is Centennial College in Toronto, Ont., which provides students of the Aviation Technician – Aircraft Maintenance program with highly sought after skills in aircraft maintenance, power plant structures, inspections, troubleshooting, mechanical, electrical and electronic applications. Students also receive detailed information on hydraulics, fuels, environmental systems, engines, surface controls and undercarriage systems, and the aircraft’s frame and external skin. Lastly, they acquire knowledge in other sciences related to aircraft maintenance, to equip them for work in the aircraft maintenance industry. Specific Aircraft Technician Training courses include: Safety and Human Factors, Piston Engines and Propellers, Theory of Flight, Sheet Metal & Aircraft Structures, Aircraft Publications and many others.

Students can expect a significant amount of hands-on training out of Ashtonbee Campus’ labs and airport hangar. This campus is the largest transportation training centre in the province and allows students to practice fixing aircraft engines, performing flight-line activities as well as conducting aircraft and component inspections.

Before students can graduate and become aircraft technicians, they must complete over 200 maintenance tasks. Also required for Aircraft Maintenance Technician graduation is a minimum C grade in all courses. The program, which results in an Ontario College Diploma, is both Transport Canada approved and Canadian Aviation Maintenance Council certified as a recognized aircraft maintenance-training program. Transport Canada accreditation requires both a minimum B grade in every course and an absentee rate of less than five per cent of the total program hours.

Once they graduate, students have the ability to: overhaul, repair, inspect or modify an aircraft as well as the install or remove of a component from an aircraft or aircraft subassembly. Most commonly, aircraft technicians go on to become Aircraft Maintenance Engineers, whose job it is to certify, after inspection, any work that is performed on the aircraft as well as performing it themselves.

Those who are interested in obtaining aircraft technician training from Centennial College must first complete an application process that includes having to present, at minimum, an Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) or General Education Development or equivalent or being 19 years of age or older. Applicants must also possess compulsory English 12C or U or skills assessment or equivalent and Math 11M or U or 12C or U or skills assessment or equivalent.