Talk:Aircraft maintenance technician

Merge with Aircraft Maintenance Engineer?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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There's a significant overlap in scope between Aircraft Maintenance Engineer, supposed to be a generic world-wide tradesperson, and Aircraft maintenance technician, which is the same thing but focused on the United States. I'm not sure if merge is the best solution, but the pages do need some title and content reshuffling.
Since an aircraft maintenance technician and engineer are broadly understood to refer to the same occupation, one solution is to move Aircraft Maintenance Engineer to Aircraft maintenance engineer (currently a DAB page), turn it into a WP:CONCEPTDAB, redirect Aircraft maintenance technician to it, and then let Aircraft Maintenance Engineer (Canada) and Aircraft Maintenance Technician (United States) (this one) to be its country-specific subarticles. P.S. I have no opinion on proper casing of the later two. No such user (talk) 09:17, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Comment. There is now a related discussion at Talk:Aircraft Maintenance Engineer#Requested move 26 August 2022. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:35, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Oppose merge, agree with other bits. Firstly, the idea of an aircraft maintenance technician (lower case) is a general one, while the Aircraft Maintenance Engineer or Licensed AME (L-AME) (capitalised) is a professional qualification. Secondly, their roles and responsibilities differ in that the AMT can in general only carry out maintenance work, while the AME is qualified to inspect the work and to certify on behalf of the government that the aircraft is flightworthy (to over-simplify, the technician carries the spanner, the engineer carries the rubber stamp). Secondly, the US situation is somewhat different from the rest of the world. This is because it arose historically in a different context. I agree with renaming this article to focus on the US qualification. Setting out the detail commonalities and differences between them in a single article would make it turgid and unreadable. Thirdly, there has been a good deal of political infighting over these roles in recent years and the OP's assertion that "Since an aircraft maintenance technician and engineer are broadly understood to refer to the same occupation" is one polar PoV which has arisen over the years, and is strongly opposed by others. With some inside knowledge, I can say that that this issue is now coming to a head, especially in Canada where the AMEs have a professional association, AMEC/TEAC (TEAC being the French-language version) to press their case. There are going to be significant developments in the near future. Adding that lot to a single article as it surfaces in reliable sources would compound the unreadable tangle. Perhaps the redirect left behind by the above suggestion could be re-purposed to document the broad history and controversy, or perhaps that would fit in the parent Aircraft maintenance article. If the AME article is to have anything merged in, it is more likely to be its Canada-specific child article. But I would hesitate to do anything drastic until the current developments surface and we can document it all here properly. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:46, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, an informative document in the above-mentioned controversy is Steve Chamberlain's 2022 presentation to Canada's WAMEA; a copy is available on the Internet Archive. (However I am not sure that it passes our reliability criteria, so I have not used its information in any articles. Perhaps third parties will publish endorsements in due course.) — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:39, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

The Aviation Wikiproject has been notified of this discussion on its talk page. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:01, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Improve Article Photo

I would like to address that the photo shown in this article should be replaced with a different photo. My reasoning is merely opinion.

Though the photo depicts aircraft line maintenance, I feel that it's a misrepresentation of safe and thorough aircraft maintenance due to the fact the nose landing gear wheels are being replaced at the same time could turn fatal as the jack could fail and the nose of the aircraft could violently fall. Though I have not read the maintenance manual for this aircraft type, most aircraft maintenance manuals will have in bold red lettering not to remove both tires off the axle and only remove one wheel at a time. It doesn't matter if it's partial jacking or full jacking. I feel that showcasing a wheel change with no tires left on the gear is an embarrassment to the industry. I understand the context of this photo is simply an innocent photo of mechanics uploaded to Wikipedia to help the reader understand the topic. 73.102.74.197 (talk) 14:34, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. I have removed it, unless and until a better one comes along. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:05, 14 July 2023 (UTC)