Fast 5: Master Mechanic Shares Perspectives On MRO’s Training Transformation

David Jones was recently awarded the FAA’s Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award and Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for his lifetime achievements in aviation. He spoke with Aviation Week Network about some of his career highlights and shared perspectives on challenges the industry faces moving forward.

You began flying at a young age and then attended school for aviation engineering technology. Could you tell me a bit about the early days of your aviation passion and how you broke into the industry?

My father learned to fly on the GI Bill after World War II, so I grew up with that in the family. He didn’t own an airplane until I was getting ready to learn to fly...He bought a little World War II trainer that I used to learn to fly. My mother was his first passenger when he got his license and she decided to be my first passenger when I got mine—she was a daring lady! The flying kept me [around] airports where you could get really close with the airplanes and people, and my interest continued to grow. When I was in high school, I started working at the airport as a mechanics’ helper, which is where I got my interest in the [technical] side.

The local community college in Lansing, Michigan had an agreement with Western Michigan University (WMU) and they sent people from WMU to recruit for the aviation department. One of the mechanics I worked with was a WMU graduate, so it seemed very logical to look at that program. At the time, the aviation program had an engineering technology degree option, and with it you chose a specialty. I already had a commercial pilot’s license and a lot of that [work] already done, but the classes you took included everything for the mechanics, so I went ahead and did both. I finished my pilot training and got my mechanic certificate at the same time.

When I graduated, I went back to Lansing to work at the airport. I took my girlfriend for an airplane ride one day and we stopped back to fuel the airplane up. One of the customers whose airplane I had worked on was there and he said he had a job opening that might interest me.  I went to work for him, mostly in a machine shop. It was interesting design work and prototype machinery, but I also got to fly and work on his airplane occasionally. That was really my first aviation job.

You eventually transitioned from the hangar to the classroom, where you’ve not only been involved in starting aviation maintenance schools and developing training materials, but also in many regulatory efforts related to curriculum and certification standards. What have been the biggest changes you’ve seen to aviation maintenance training over the last 50 years?

Part 147 went through its first major change in a very long time in the 1970s while I was a student but did not get changed or updated for over 20 years. They made a few little tweaks to get rid of some equipment that you’re never going to see again and to add some new stuff, but it was very little and very late. The industry started pushing back and said, ‘We need to change this.’ There was a combined effort between the FAA and industry that I got involved with in its earliest days. We worked on changing the whole idea of certification with the FAA on the pilot side and the mechanic side.

They’ve gone back and redone the material that the FAA publishes to support the certification system, because in the past they got it way out of whack. They were asking questions on the test that were not covered in any aviation documentation from the FAA. Because Part 147 was written sloppily, there were things [in] the rule that shouldn’t have been there. The difficulty in changing a rule literally means an act of Congress, but just tweaking a curriculum shouldn’t require that. We needed to get it into a system that could be updated more regularly. We [the Aviation Technician Education Council, in partnership with the Aeronautical Repair Station Association] rewrote Part 147 ourselves and got bicameral, bipartisan legislative support to move it through. Today, Part 147 is nothing like it was when I started in this industry. [Editor’s note: You can learn more about the revamped Part 147 here.]

As someone so deeply ingrained in the Part 147 community—particularly as the former VP of ATEC and a designated maintenance examiner (DME)—I’m sure you’re deeply familiar with the industry’s instructor and DME shortages. How have you seen these shortages impact future workforce pipeline?

They definitely keep schools from accepting as many students as they may be certified to take. It artificially holds down enrollments because they can’t get the instructors and DMEs to do the testing. Schools [struggle] to get instructors. There is no FAA instructor rating like there is for pilots, so there’s no real credential there. Most of the accrediting agencies say [instructors] have to be an A&P for three years and leave it at that, but it doesn’t give them any real background and doesn’t elevate that position up to where they can be competitive salary-wise with the industry. The industry is starting to realize we have a [workforce] shortage so they’re raising the pay for mechanical people, but the schools are left looking too often to retirees. We get people retired from airlines and the military, but there just aren’t that many people coming out that are willing to take a job after retirement. When I started teaching in 1970s, we had a huge flow of people getting out of the military because of Vietnam and they would time out and decide they wanted to stay in the aviation industry. It was much easier to find people who were ex-military who wanted to stay in the industry and teach. We don’t have that pipeline anymore.

You’ve also worked to develop aviation maintenance training for countries outside the U.S. Could you tell me a bit about what led to this and what it’s entailed?

An aircraft OEM was looking to start an aviation school in Saudi Arabia related to a big sale of military aircraft to the country. There were very few Saudis qualified to do that work because they’d typically brought [skilled workers] from other countries, so the government decided it needed to get its own people involved. It wasn’t just aviation—they had programs for every trade you could think of going. [The aircraft OEM] offered to help them fill the need and put it out for bid. That was during the time I was working for an aviation maintenance school in Virginia Beach, and we bid on it and got part of [the contract]. I worked with getting it set up and developing a curriculum. The advantage was that Saudi Arabia uses the same rules as the FAA in the U.S., so the requirements were exactly what we were accustomed to using and the government was very easy to work with.

The aviation industry and aircraft technology have changed a lot over the last 50 years. What recent changes or upcoming developments excite you the most?

I was actually on verge of retiring—I think I officially retired for one week—but unmanned aviation and the drone world hit me. At the time I was working on a project in Las Vegas and that was at the center of a lot of the initial efforts for unmanned aviation. I got involved with a couple different organizations and it was kind of like starting all over with a whole new aviation world. So is the idea of electric-powered aircraft. I’m not 100% convinced yet but it’s fun to follow and be a part of. The miniaturization of components fascinates me. When I look back, the first autopilots that I worked on or flew with were monsters. Everything that it takes to run that autopilot is inside the iPhone sitting on my desk. There’s nothing those early autopilots could do that my iPhone wouldn’t do today—the components are already there.

You can read other interesting AMT career pathway stories from Aviation Week Network's 2024 Aviation Maintenance Technician Day feature here.