City aviation institute seeks European agency nod for course

City-based Thakur Institute of Aviation Technology (TIAT) plans to launch a course in "type-rating" for A320 aircraft maintenance engineers (AMEs) and has applied to the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) for approval.
"We want our students to attain certain special training for certifying different types of aircraft. So we have applied to EASA for its approval to our Airbus A 320 type-rating course," said TIAT chief instructer Subhajit Maity.
"Type-rating" is a regulating agency's certification which allows an AME to certify a certain type of aircraft.
Maity said EASA's chief airworthiness manager had visited TIAT's Mumbai campus last week and had inspected various processes that are being put in place to commence the proposed course.

"If we are able to meet their parameters, we wil get the approval by the middle of next year," he said.
"The introduction of the type-rating course at the Institute will help our students save a lot of costs as at present they have to go out for such a training which is expensive," Maity said.

Set up in 2006, the TIAT currently offers a three-year programme in aircraft maintenance engineering in mechanics and avionics stream besides an EASA-approved AME licensing course.
A licensed AME performs two types of works on the aircraft--line maintenance and base maintenance.
The line maintenance is the checks that are performed on the aircraft a day or few hours before its departure.

The base maintenance on an aircraft is carried out at the hangar and goes on for a longer time, sometimes weeks.
AME licence from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) allows an engineer to certify the air worthiness of an aircraft. No aircraft can fly without this "certificate release to service" from a senior AME.