PROFILE: Regulated to Regulator-A life in transition

摘要

During an aviation career that has spanned nearly twenty- five years, I have had the opportunity to be involved with non-destructive testing from both sides of the fence. I have been an NDT technician, NDT supervisor and Manager of NDT for a series of United States airlines, and am currently the Federal Aviation Administration's, National Resource Specialist for NDI. The experiences from the two sides of the fence have been similar in many ways, most notably the frustrations of dealing with something as simple as standardisation of qualification programmes. In my past life, I dealt with the rules and regulations associated with aviation NDI from an industry perspective. We owned and maintained aircraft that were manufactured in both the US and Europe, each having different perspectives as to the qualifications of NDI personnel and the wording of these requirements. This led to many frustrating hours trying to design a qualification programme that met the expectations of the manufacturers and the requirements imposed by my regulators.