FAR Part 147 — Aviation Maintenance Technician Schools

14 CFR Part 147 is the regulatory framework under which the FAA certifies Aviation Maintenance Technician Schools (AMTS) — the formal institutional pathway to the Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) mechanic certificate. Before 2022, Part 147 had remained largely unchanged since its original adoption in 1962, when it prescribed a rigid curriculum structure specifying exact subject areas and minimum instruction hours in extreme detail. A comprehensive rulemaking effort directed by Section 624 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 (Pub. L. 115-254) resulted in an extensive revision of Part 147 that became effective September 21, 2022. The revised regulation shifted from prescriptive time-based requirements toward an outcome-based model, allowing AMTS programs greater flexibility in curriculum design provided they demonstrate student achievement of defined learning standards.

§147.1 defines applicability: Part 147 applies to any person who operates or proposes to operate an aviation maintenance technician school. §147.7 establishes the eligibility requirements: an applicant must have adequate facilities, equipment, instructional material, and a sufficient number of qualified instructors to conduct the proposed curriculum. The previous version of Part 147 contained specific minimum square-footage requirements for classrooms and shops; the 2022 revision replaced these with performance standards — the facilities must be adequate to support the approved curriculum, with adequacy determined during the certification process rather than by fixed numbers.

The revised curriculum framework under §147.21 requires each AMTS to develop and maintain an FAA-approved curriculum organized around specific learning objectives tied to the Aviation Maintenance Technician Airframe (AMT-Airframe), Aviation Maintenance Technician Powerplant (AMT-Powerplant), and Aviation Maintenance Technician General (AMT-General) Airmen Certification Standards (ACS), which replaced the former Practical Test Standards and define what a certificated A&P must know and be able to do. The general ACS is common to both Airframe and Powerplant programs; a combined A&P curriculum must meet all three ACS document requirements. Under the pre-2022 rules, Appendices A, B, and C of Part 147 specified exact subject area lists and minimum hours for the General (400 hours), Airframe (750 hours), and Powerplant (750 hours) curricula — totaling a minimum of 1,900 hours for a combined A&P program. The 2022 revision removed those fixed hourly minimums in favor of competency-based completions, though most schools have maintained training programs of similar duration because the technical content depth required to achieve ACS standards has not diminished.

Faculty requirements under §147.23 mandate that each AMTS employ instructors who hold an A&P certificate (with appropriate ratings for the subjects taught) and have sufficient practical experience to teach the required content. The previous version of Part 147 specified exact experience minimums in number of years; the revised standard requires instructors to demonstrate qualifications appropriate to the curriculum. The Chief Inspector role — an AMTS designation that is distinct from the IA under Part 65 — is responsible for overall curriculum oversight and FAA interface. §147.29 addresses student records: the school must maintain records of attendance, grades, and completion for each student and must make those records available to the FAA on request. Records must be retained for a minimum of 5 years.

Approximately 170 to 200 Part 147-certificated schools operate in the United States, ranging from community colleges and technical institutes with small A&P programs to large aviation universities. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (both Daytona Beach and Prescott campuses), Purdue University, Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology, and Fox Valley Technical College are among the larger institutions. The AMTS pathway competes with the experience-based pathway under §65.71 — 18 months of practical experience for a single rating, or 30 months for concurrent A and P ratings — but the school pathway is generally preferred by industry because the structured curriculum provides comprehensive theoretical grounding that is difficult to guarantee from informal shop experience alone. The FAA's own data indicate that Part 147 graduates have historically higher first-attempt pass rates on the A&P knowledge and practical tests than experience-pathway applicants. §147.39 establishes graduate test completion reporting as a continuing school obligation: each AMTS must report pass rates to the FAA and is subject to enhanced surveillance if pass rates fall below acceptable thresholds, which can trigger mandatory curriculum review or, in extreme cases, certificate action. FAA Advisory Circular AC 147-3B (updated following the 2022 revision) provides detailed guidance on the certification process, curriculum development, and ongoing compliance management for AMTS operators.

Flight school operators and maintenance training programs intersect with Part 147 primarily at two points. First, any organization seeking to establish a formal A&P training curriculum must obtain Part 147 certification — it cannot simply advertise mechanic training and issue completion certificates that qualify applicants for the FAA knowledge tests. The certification process involves FSDO review of the facility, curriculum, and instructor qualifications before the first student is enrolled. Second, flight schools that employ A&P mechanics hired as recent Part 147 graduates should verify that each graduate's AMTS completion record covers both Airframe and Powerplant ratings — some AMTS programs offer single-rating curricula, and a mechanic with only one rating cannot perform or approve work under the other rating.

The 2022 regulatory revision has practical implications for schools evaluating AMTS partnerships or feeder programs. The outcome-based approach means that curriculum structures vary more across schools than they did under the prescriptive pre-2022 rules, and a graduate's knowledge profile may differ meaningfully from school to school. Hiring organizations should evaluate AMTS program depth against the ACS standards rather than assuming hour-equivalency across schools. Industry groups including the Aviation Technician Education Council (ATEC) were primary stakeholders in the 2022 rulemaking and continue to publish resources on implementing the revised standards.

Aviatize's training management module supports AMTS operators by providing a structured digital platform for tracking each student's progress through the FAA-approved curriculum — recording attendance, lesson completions, practical assessment outcomes, and knowledge test results against the ACS learning objectives the school is required to demonstrate. The platform generates student record files that satisfy the §147.29 retention and FAA-availability requirements, replacing paper grade books with an auditable digital trail that can be exported on demand for FSDO surveillance visits or graduation verification requests.

For the faculty qualification records required under §147.23, the compliance and auditing module maintains instructor credential files — A&P certificate numbers, ratings, and experience documentation — and flags any gaps in coverage between current instructor qualifications and the approved curriculum. When a school adds a new curriculum module (for example, an advanced avionics subject area), the system can check whether existing instructor credentials cover the new subject before the module is delivered, preventing an inadvertent qualification gap that could surface as a finding during FAA inspection.