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HOW TO GET INTO AVIONICS Ever wondered how to get into Avionics? That’s short for Aviation Electronics, a field that can be very challenging and satisfying. This article looks at the work of a typical avionics maintenance engineer and tells you how to proceed if you want a career in this area. By Daniel Field O utside my window the engine shut down. It had been running for barely a minute. Curious, I walked onto the tarmac to see what the problem was. The pilot looked at me with the slightly bewildered gaze of someone whose detailed planning has suddenly become worthless. “The radios don’t work,” he said, without any emotion. “I can hear, but no-one’s responding to my calls.” It was the same on both the VHF radios, he told me, and he hadn’t tried the HF yet. I started checking the standard causes. First, I gave his microphone plug a firm push to make sure it was in properly. “Click”. Ah, that might be it. I flicked the power back on and called the control tower. No worries. I tried the second VHF radio. That’s good too. www.siliconchip.com.au Thanking me profusely, the pilot said it was a good thing, because he had left his lunch box in his car and he would have left without it. I went back inside, shaking my head. Just another minor occurrence in another very busy day in the life of an Avionics maintenance engineer. Avionics is an abbreviation of “Aviation Electronics”. In the aircraft maintenance industry, an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer (AME) in avionics looks after all the electrical, instrument and radio systems. This may include installing, maintaining, troubleshooting and repairing avionics systems and components. If you want to get into avionics, you need to know which avenues to try. Do you want to cut your teeth on the big stuff? Are you strictly a hi-tech person? Are you willing April 2002  7 Cessna 208B Grand Caravan with some instruments out. Top: engine instruments with warning panel in front of pilot. Left: flight & navigation instruments. Centre: (“right” in the picture): radios, radar, autopilot and GPS. to work your way up from the bottom? I hope this article will help answer these questions. First, let’s introduce the three main branches of Aviation: Military The Army, Airforce and Navy provide excellent training in Avionics. You can join from 17 to 48 years old. You will be trained initially in Wagga Wagga, NSW, then on-the-job in Oakey, Qld. The training gives you the same qualifications as a civilian course. After getting your trade you will be posted to a base in a location such as Townsville or Darwin. Your initial enlistment will be for six years. In the military, your job description will be broader than most civilian aviation jobs. In addition to the standard work on aircraft you will learn to service the ground and test equipment while also being a soldier. Pros: Consistently high quality training. A system that gives you room for advancement. Respect from the industry. Cons: Military experience does not automatically transfer to an avionics licence in “civvy street.” While your training itself is recognised, it can be very difficult to get any official recognition for your experience. The basic reason for this is that military aircraft are not on the civil register. Therefore the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (Australia’s aviation regulatory body, generally known as “CASA”), does not have any authority over military aircraft nor the work done on them. At the same time, CASA is responsible for issuing avionics licences in civil aviation. 8  Silicon Chip I should explain that: without a CASA licence, you can work on civil aircraft but you won’t get paid very much. People with military experience outside of CASA’s authority find that their experience may not count towards a licence. Some of the military trained people I know have had frustrating experiences trying to get civilian licences without effectively going back to the end of their apprenticeships. But it can be done and once you go through the process you should find that the industry generally accepts and respects military experience. To find out more, try www.defencejobs.gov.au or contact the Australian Defence Force Recruiting Centre on 13 19 01. Airlines This is the “heavy metal” side of aviation. Airlines fly anything from 19 seaters and smaller to the massive Boeing 747-400 series and the planned full length double-decker Airbus A380. In the airlines you will generally work on advanced, complex avionics systems built for reliability. You may not realise that there are several significant airlines in Australia; not just Qantas and Virgin Blue. The regional and subsidiary airline market with 30 to 100-seat aircraft is seen as the growth sector within the airline industry worldwide. If you want to fly between, say, Albury and Canberra, or Brisbane and Rockhampton, you could book a ticket through Qantas but you would actually fly on one of Qantas’s subsidiary airlines such as Airlink, Eastern Australia www.siliconchip.com.au A Sunair HF power amp with one valve missing. (Yes, valve!). Trying to find the cause of intermittent transmit on this twenty-something-year-old Cessna radio. Airlines, Southern Australia Airlines, Sunstate Airlines or Airconnex. (and I mean actually work on them), do yourself a favor and do not put a degree at the top of your list of options. That leaves us with Apprenticeships. Apprenticeships have two outstanding advantages: 1. You get paid while you learn. 2. You work as you learn, so you get to touch, break, smell, see, repair and play with the things you are learning about. When you come out of an apprenticeship you are fully ready to do the work. Perhaps I should introduce myself. I am a fourth year apprentice in General Aviation. I work on mail planes, charter planes, trainers, small freighters, some small regional airliners and the Royal Flying Doctor Service aircraft. I install, maintain and repair all sorts of electrical, instrument and radio systems and components. When you look at apprenticeships, it’s worth thinking about the differences between the airlines and General Aviation. In the airlines you will work on more advanced avionics in larger aircraft. The large airlines train you to work in a specific area: Line Maintenance, Heavy Maintenance or Component Overhaul. Line Maintenance means “turnaround” checks and trying to quickly solve problems that have recently come up. This usually involves “box swapping” until you find the box that is faulty and then send it away for repair. Heavy maintenance means checking and repairing avionics systems while the aircraft is in the hangar for several days or weeks for a major routine inspection. This is also a box swapping job, as well as checking and repairing the several kilometres of wiring running all over the aircraft. Component Overhaul is the benchwork side of aviation: testing and repairing the “boxes” – generators, instruments, etc, that have been removed by the line or heavy maintenance techs. The bench techs may overhaul electric motors, repair and calibrate instruments or test and repair electronics to board or component level. The great thing about General Aviation is that you can do it all! I spend about 50% of my time doing “line maintenance” (including 100 hourly checks), about 30% doing “heavy maintenance” such as modifying systems, installing new equipment and chasing faults that have not been solved General Aviation GA is the “everything else” of civil aviation. This includes private owners, charter operators, corporate aircraft and some freighters. The majority of GA is single-piston- engine aircraft; some new, some old. At the glamour end you have twin-jet aircraft from tiny six-seaters to multi-office-and-boardroom jets designed for productive long-haul flights. So how do you get into Civilian Avionics? There are two main approaches: 1. An apprenticeship. 2. Tertiary study. Tertiary study probably sounds like a great idea. It is, as long as you keep in mind that people with degrees generally don’t get to work on aircraft. For example, you could do a Bachelor of Engineering in Aerospace Avionics at Queensland University of Technology. This course “...prepares students for careers in the expanding field of aircraft and spacecraft instrumentation and in associated ground equipment.” You would find that the course is quite deep mathematically and also covers management considerations. By the end of the course you will know more about Avionics than the best tradesman. But with only three months of work experience you probably won’t be able to remove a gyroscopic instrument from a Cessna single without breaking something. Compare that to a certificate IV in Aeroskills (Avionics) at Kangan Batman TAFE, also known as the trade course. It prepares students for “...employment with international and domestic airlines, in aircraft production and refurbishment, and corporate and general aviation.” This course is light on theory compared to the degree (though you still learn a lot). Students will generally be working in the industry for about eight or nine months per year and will be fully ready to work as Aircraft Maintenance Engineers the day they finish. If you want to get into design then yes, get a Bachelor of Engineering, or perhaps an Advanced Diploma in Avionics. But if you want to work on aircraft avionics systems www.siliconchip.com.au April 2002  9 Cessna Grand Caravan battery, standby instrument vacuum system and high energy ignition units. Our 2nd year apprentice getting access to a Cessna P210 instrument. by box swapping and about 20% of my time doing “component overhaul” in our radio workshop. Practically every GA outfit does line and heavy and a large percentage also do component overhaul. In the airlines you may work on three or four different aircraft types, or possibly specialise in only one or two, for example, Boeing 737-300 and 737-400. In GA, you will work on more types than you can remember. A sample of my own list is: Cessna 172, 182, 206, 207, 210, 402, 404, Beech Bonanza, Baron, Piper Seneca, Cherokee, Lance, Navajo, Chieftain, Shrike Aero Commander, Parten-avia (all single and twin piston engine aircraft, up to ten seats), plus Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, Pilatus PC12, Beech Kingair 200, Fairchild Metro 23, Embraer Brasilia (all single and twin turboprop aircraft from 10 to 30 seats), plus Robinson R22, R44, Bell 206 Jetranger (helicopters). These are just the ones I had worked on at least a few times within my first two years of avionics. Any work that is done on an aircraft or its components must be certified. To certify work you must have an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer’s Licence. These licences are issued by CASA. How to get a licence is another story altogether. For now, you should know that only a select few in the airlines ever get a CASA licence. In General Aviation almost the reverse is true, with nearly everyone encouraged to get at least one licence. Having or not having a CASA licence is one of the biggest single factors effecting your income in civil aircraft maintenance. In the airlines, unlicenced workers are paid more than in GA. The basic reasons are that the aircraft are in a different legal classification because they carry fare-paying passengers on regular routes and they are over 5,700kg which puts them in a different category for CASA licences. An airline apprentice generally has a higher base wage than a GA apprentice. Table 1 shows the wages for both Qantas and GA apprentices. When you finish your apprenticeship with Qantas your wage would be about $610.00 per week if you don’t work on aircraft and about $640.00 per week if you do. It is very important to realise that most of Qantas’s finishing apprentices will not work on aircraft: they do component overhaul in workshops. If you do component overhaul it is unlikely that you will ever get a CASA licence. Qantas only fills licenced positions as they become vacant and they choose people based on performance and qualifications. Qantas also offers a Graduate Trainee Program so you can follow your apprenticeship with an engineering degree. For those who get neither a licence nor a degree, your prospects are to progress through the Qantas ranks to Maintenance Supervisor or a job in management. Alternatively you could move “sideways” into another related industry such as industrial motor overhaul, consumer electronics, etc. On the other hand, when you finish your apprenticeship in General Aviation your base wage would be about $480.00 per week (minimum). The major and very important difference is that you will almost certainly be very close to getting your first CASA licence. All it requires is some aptitude and effort. Once you have your first licence your wage will jump to around $530.00, depending on which licence it is. Within a year of your apprenticeship ending, if you put in the effort, you could have Electrical, Instrument and Radio licences in multiple categories. This would set your minimum wage around $750.00 per week. Depending on which licences you have, you could be highly sought after. If all you want is the money then you can get certain hard-to-find licences (certain helicopters, or the latest bizjets, for example.) Typical wages in this niche of GA are around $50,000 to $65,000 per year in Australia and possibly that much in US dollars if you are willing to work in God-forsaken countries of the world at all hours. Airlines generally advertise their apprenticeships in major newspapers. However, if you really want to get an 10  Silicon Chip Table 1: Weekly Rates of Pay for Avionics Apprentices Qantas General Aviation 1st year $269.00 $171.40 (minimum) 2nd year $352.50 $224.50 (minimum) 3rd year $480.40 $306.10 (minimum) 4th year $563.70 $359.10 (minimum) www.siliconchip.com.au Replacing a lighting dimmer pot in a Super Kingair used for charter work. airline apprenticeship then you should contact every airline you can think of, get their application forms, and apply. Remember to contact every regional and subsidiary airline that you can, not just Qantas. During my apprenticeship I studied with two Ansett avionics apprentices. The word on the street was that about 2,000 people applied for Ansett apprenticeships that year. About 60 were taken. Of those 60, only two were put on as avionics apprentices. That’s two out of two thousand applicants. It is only fair that I tell you at the time Ansett ceased operations, both those apprentices felt that they would most likely end up in component overhaul, even though they both wanted to do line maintenance and they were entirely capable of it. My best advice for getting into the airlines is to keep trying, be proactive, and make sure you always show them that you really want to work for them. By proactive I mean you should try to make your own Changing the altitude alert selector in a Fairchild Metro. Notice it mounts from the front: much easier than rearmounted, as used in smaller aircraft. Notice the sections of the panel. Across the top: radios, audio and warnings. In front of pilot: flight instruments (electro-mechanical). Then: two columns of engine instruments: Left & Right. Centre: radar, GPS, fire warning/extinguish, standby and auxiliary instruments. www.siliconchip.com.au April 2002  11 A combination of analog and digital circuits is found in this VHF communications transceiver/navigation receiver, typical of Cessna aircraft from the ’70s and early ’80s. Crimping a connector for de-ice wiring: windscreen replacement on a Pilatus PC-12, used for regional mail runs, charter and carriage of goods and people for the Aboriginal corporate owners. opportunities: don’t just wait for a newspaper advert to appear. Apply for apprenticeships everywhere, even if you are told there is nothing available. Be prepared for a lot of “No” answers and also be prepared to keep trying for every opening you see. There is no set procedure for getting into General Aviation. Most of the avionics workshops are genuine small businesses with around two to ten employees. The business owners and workshop managers are flesh-and-blood people with concerns about the fickle nature of the aviation industry. Some of them may have been laid off by various airlines up to three or four times over their careers. In this setting you will understand that some GA avionics businesses may consider putting on an apprentice for several months or even years without ever taking the step of advertising for one. If you can find one of these businesses and show that you are both able and interested, chances are you will get a week’s work experience with a view to becoming an apprentice. I personally decided to seriously try for an apprenticeship in October 1998. I wrote a letter, included written references from my employer at the time (a mobile phone shop) and my previous employer (a Retravision store). I included all my school results, science and maths competition results and details of an unrelated qualification from my retail work. I emphasised my strong maths and science background and the positive comments of my previous employers. I sent all of this to an Avionics workshop in Mackay that had advertised for an Avionics apprentice. I didn’t get the apprenticeship. Still enthusiastic, I rang another organisation that I knew had avionics engineers. They told me to send my information but there was not really anything available. I sent them my package. A week later, they sent the same information to a related company in Alice Springs. After some discussions they decided to take me on, provided I worked in the hangar for a year before starting on Avionics. Now I am in my fourth year and I should be able to get several CASA licences as soon as my apprenticeship finishes. So my advice for getting into General Aviation is really the same as for the airlines, only there are a lot more places to try. Keep trying, be proactive, show your enthusiasm. Be prepared to do a week of work experience as part of the process. My only word of caution is that you must make sure you know what you are being offered before you accept anything. With such diversity in GA there is no guarantee that your prospective employer will help you get CASA licences, or that you will work on any more than one or two aircraft types. It is in your interests to know what sort of work you will do and how far the employer will encourage you to go, right from the start. My last bit of advice is for older people who want to work with avionics but cannot live on apprentice wages. Remember that all the GA wages I have quoted are minimum wages, set out in the Aircraft Engineers (General Aviation) award. As a mature-aged person your job is to convince a potential employer that it’s worth taking you on instead of a 17-year-old. Part of taking you on is to pay reasonable adult wages. The main thing is to be (surprise, surprise) proactive and positive. List all the reasons why you are better, convince yourself, then set out contacting every place you can. It’s also worth thinking “outside the box”. At the moment it is still possible to gain your CASA licences without doing an apprenticeship. You need to pass all your exams and fulfil the experience requirements but it’s possible to do your experience as a trades assistant or (really outside the box now) an accountant or taxi driver who works on aircraft 20 hours a week, etc. Please take me seriously when I say that this door is almost closed now. New legislation currently being introduced will effectively make it impossible to sit the licencing exams without attending an approved course. So if you want to get into Avionics without doing an apprenticeship, DO IT NOW! I hope that’s enough to get you started. Anyone who likes aircraft and enjoys electronics would agree that Avionics is the greatest industry in the world. Keep trying and maybe we’ll meet at a trade fair or in SC the tail of an aircraft one day. 12  Silicon Chip www.siliconchip.com.au