Aviation Maintenance Technology General I

Course Description

Aviation Maintenance Technology General I is the first half of the General portion of an FAA aviation maintenance curriculum — the foundational knowledge every aircraft mechanic needs before specializing in airframe or powerplant work. It introduces and provides practical exercise in general hangar and shop safety, environmental concerns, mathematics, physics, basic aerodynamics, federal aviation regulations, publications and records, aircraft hardware and precision measuring instruments, blueprints and drawings, hand and power tools, and fluid lines and fittings.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, AMT is the Aviation Maintenance Technology prefix. This course is delivered at approximately three Florida institutions and is part of a program leading toward the FAA Airframe and Powerplant certificate. The C suffix denotes an integrated lecture-and-laboratory course, which is what General instruction necessarily is — every subject is taught with hands-on practice.

The General curriculum is where a mechanic learns the habits that everything else rests on: how to find the correct procedure in the manufacturer's documentation, how to measure precisely, how to safety-wire a fitting, and how to record what was done. None of it is glamorous, and all of it is what makes the later work airworthy.

⚠ Two institutions, two completely different packagings of the same FAA curriculum

This is the most instructive numbering divergence in this repository, because the two schemes can be reconciled arithmetically.

The FAA prescribes the content of the General portion of an aviation maintenance technician curriculum. Florida institutions package it differently:

• FSCJ delivers it as two large blocks — AMT1751C "Aviation Maintenance Technology General I" and AMT1752C "General II" — at roughly 6 credits each.
• Broward College delivers the same content as ten micro-courses of one or two credits each: AMT1001C Basic Electricity (2 cr / 89.25 hrs), AMT1011C Aircraft Drawings (1 / 21), AMT1021C Weight and Balance (1 / 32.5), AMT1031C Fluid Lines and Fittings (1 / 26.25), AMT1041C Materials and Processes (2 / 84), AMT1050C Ground Operations and Servicing (1 / 31.5), AMT1061C Cleaning and Corrosion Control (1 / 26.25), AMT1071C Mathematics for Aviation (1 / 21), AMT1080C FARs, Forms, Privileges & Human Factors (1 / 42), and AMT1090C Basic Physics (1 / 26.25).

Broward's ten General courses sum to exactly 12 credits and exactly 400.00 contact hours — and 400 hours is the FAA's long-standing minimum for the General curriculum. That exact sum is strong evidence the two packagings cover identical ground, and it is the basis for the 6 credits / 200 hours reported for each FSCJ block here. Treat the hour figure as derived rather than published and confirm on your own syllabus.

SCNS equivalency does not cross numbers. A student who completed Broward's ten courses has not, formally, completed AMT1751C — and one who completed AMT1751C has not completed Broward's ten. In practice this matters less than it would elsewhere, because what actually transfers in this field is FAA-documented training toward the mechanic certificate, tracked by the certificated school rather than by the registrar. Have both evaluated: the college credit by the receiving institution, and the FAA training by the receiving Part 147 school.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Apply hangar and shop safety practices, including personal protective equipment, fire safety, and hazardous material handling.
• Describe environmental compliance requirements applicable to aviation maintenance operations.
• Perform the mathematics required in maintenance: ratio, proportion, algebra, geometry, and the metric and English systems.
• Apply physical principles — force, work, power, simple machines, fluid mechanics, heat, and sound — to maintenance problems.
• Describe the basic principles of aerodynamics and the forces acting on an aircraft in flight.
• Describe the structure and application of the Federal Aviation Regulations relevant to the mechanic.
• Locate and correctly apply information from maintenance manuals, service bulletins, airworthiness directives, and type certificate data sheets.
• Make correct maintenance record entries and describe the mechanic's recordkeeping responsibilities.
• Identify aircraft hardware — bolts, nuts, screws, rivets, and fasteners — and select the correct item for an application.
• Apply correct torque procedures and safety-wire fasteners to standard.
• Use precision measuring instruments accurately: micrometers, calipers, dial indicators, and gauges.
• Read and interpret aircraft blueprints, drawings, schematics, charts, and graphs.
• Select, use, and maintain hand and power tools safely and correctly.
• Fabricate, install, and inspect rigid and flexible fluid lines and fittings.
• Perform work to the standard required for FAA certification testing.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe human factors and their role in maintenance error.
• Describe maintenance publications in electronic form and the use of manufacturer portals.
• Describe tool control and foreign object damage prevention programs.
• Describe the role of the Designated Mechanic Examiner and the certification testing process.
• Begin preparation for the FAA General written examination.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Hangar and shop safety; fire, electrical, and compressed gas hazards
• Environmental compliance and hazardous material handling
• Mathematics for aviation maintenance
• Basic physics applied to aircraft systems
• Fundamentals of aerodynamics
• Federal Aviation Regulations and the mechanic's privileges and limitations
• Maintenance publications: manuals, service bulletins, ADs, and TCDS
• Maintenance records and required entries
• Aircraft hardware identification and selection
• Torque procedures and safety wiring
• Precision measuring instruments
• Aircraft drawings, blueprints, and schematics
• Hand and power tools
• Rigid and flexible fluid lines and fittings
• Shop practices and workmanship standards

Optional Topics

• Human factors in maintenance
• Electronic maintenance documentation
• Tool control and FOD prevention
• Certification testing process and the DME
• FAA General written examination preparation

Resources & Tools

• FAA-H-8083-30, the Aviation Maintenance Technician Handbook — General — free from the FAA and the authoritative reference for this entire course.
• 14 CFR Parts 43, 65, and 91 — free at eCFR; these are the regulations a mechanic works under daily.
• Aviation Maintenance Technician Series: General (Dale Crane) — the standard commercial text and test preparation resource.
• FAA Airman Certification Standards for the Aviation Mechanic — the current statement of what must be known and demonstrated.
• Test preparation resources for the FAA General written examination (ASA, Gleim, or Jeppesen).
• Shop equipment: precision measuring instruments, torque wrenches, safety wire pliers, tube benders and flaring tools, and hand and power tools.
• Manufacturer maintenance manuals and illustrated parts catalogs, and the FAA's Dynamic Regulatory System for ADs and guidance.
• A personal tool set — see the cost note below.

Career Pathways

• Certificated A&P mechanic — airlines, regional carriers, repair stations, corporate flight departments, and general aviation.
• Airline line maintenance technician — turnaround and line work at Florida's major airports.
• Repair station technician — Part 145 facilities; Florida has a very large MRO sector.
• Corporate and business aviation maintenance — often the best-compensated general aviation work.
• Inspection Authorization (IA) — an additional FAA authorization after experience, permitting annual inspections and major repair approval.
• Avionics technician — with the AMT avionics sequence and FCC or NCATT credentials.
• Aviation maintenance management — the A.S. this course sits in is designed as the path toward supervision and quality roles.
• Florida is one of the strongest aviation maintenance markets in the country: major carrier bases and MRO facilities across Miami, Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, and the Space Coast, plus a very large general aviation and business aviation sector. SOC code 49-3011 Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians.

Special Information

⚠ The credential is the FAA certificate, not the degree

The most important thing an aviation maintenance student can understand, and it reframes the whole program.

An employer hires a mechanic on the FAA Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) certificate, issued under 14 CFR Part 65. The certificate is earned by completing training at an FAA-certificated Part 147 Aviation Maintenance Technician School (or by documenting practical experience), and then passing, for each rating, a written test, an oral examination, and a practical test. The college credential is secondary; some employers care about the degree, all of them care about the certificate.

Three practical consequences:

• Verify the school holds a current FAA Part 147 certificate before enrolling. Training at a non-certificated provider does not carry the same route to eligibility, and this is not recoverable afterward.
• General is only the first third. The A&P requires General plus Airframe and Powerplant. A student who completes only the General courses holds no rating.
• Plan and budget for the tests. Written, oral, and practical testing is separate from tuition, and the oral and practical are conducted by a Designated Mechanic Examiner at additional cost.

⚠ Part 147 was substantially rewritten and rule 11 applies hard. The FAA replaced the long-standing prescriptive curriculum-and-hours structure with one based on Airman Certification Standards, with a transition period during which schools moved to the new framework. That means the fixed hour totals described in older catalogs and textbooks — including the 400-hour General figure used above — reflect the historic structure, and a school's current curriculum may be organized differently. Verify the current requirements with the FAA and with the specific Part 147 school rather than relying on published hour counts, a prior cohort's experience, or this guide.

⚠ The regulations and recordkeeping content is the part that carries legal weight

Students expect the hands-on subjects to matter most and frequently treat the regulatory material as an obstacle. It is the opposite: the mechanic's signature is a legal certification, and the regulatory content is what makes it defensible.

Under 14 CFR Part 43, a person who performs maintenance makes a record entry certifying the work was performed in accordance with approved data. Three consequences follow:

• "Approved data" is a defined term. A mechanic must use the manufacturer's manual, an airworthiness directive, or other FAA-approved data — not memory, not what the last shop did, and not a shortcut that works.
• An airworthiness directive is mandatory. ADs address unsafe conditions and compliance is not optional; missed ADs are among the most common findings in a records audit.
• Falsifying a maintenance record is a certificate action and can be criminal. Signing for work not performed, or performed differently from the record, is the offense the FAA treats most seriously.

The habit worth forming now: look it up every time. Experienced mechanics look up torque values and procedures they have used a hundred times, because manuals are revised and because the record must reflect the current approved data.

⚠ Safety wiring and torque are where workmanship becomes airworthiness

Two skills in this course are disproportionately consequential and are graded strictly for that reason.

Torque is a specification, not a feel. Under-torqued fasteners loosen; over-torqued fasteners fail — sometimes immediately, sometimes hundreds of hours later. The correct value comes from the manual, the wrench must be calibrated, and the technique (smooth application, correct sequence, no re-torquing a running fastener) matters. Students who develop the habit of "good and tight" do not pass.

Safety wiring is the visible signature of workmanship in aviation, and inspectors and examiners read it as a proxy for everything else. Correct direction of pull, correct twist rate, correct pigtail, no nicks in the wire. It is fiddly, it takes practice, and it is on the practical test.

The underlying principle worth internalizing: in aviation, the consequence of a small error is separated from the error by time and distance. A loose fitting does not fail in the hangar. That is why the standards are prescriptive rather than left to judgment.

⚠ Practical costs: tools, testing, and time

Aviation maintenance training carries real costs beyond tuition, and students should know them before enrolling.

• A personal tool set is expected in most programs and in employment, and a working mechanic's tools represent a substantial investment accumulated over years. Ask the program what is required and when.
• FAA testing is separate from tuition: three written examinations (General, Airframe, Powerplant) plus oral and practical testing with a Designated Mechanic Examiner, each with its own fee.
• The program is long and attendance-driven. Part 147 training is tracked, and hours missed generally must be made up — this is not a program that accommodates irregular attendance.
• Employment often requires relocation initially. Florida's market is strong, but entry-level line and MRO positions are concentrated at specific facilities.

The honest counterpart: the credential holds its value unusually well. The A&P certificate does not expire, the work cannot be offshored, and demand has been persistent. It is one of the more reliable two-year technical credentials available.

Course format, credits, and contact hours

The 6 credits and 200 contact hours reported here are derived as described above — from FSCJ's published credit value and from the arithmetic reconciliation with Broward's ten General courses totalling 12 credits and 400.00 hours. Hour figures in this field reflect the historic Part 147 structure and schools have transitioned to a competency-based framework; confirm the current structure and scheduled hours with your own program.

Delivery is integrated lecture and shop, and FSCJ notes the course is web-facilitated with a portion of instruction online. Assessment combines written examination with practical projects evaluated to FAA standards — the work either meets the standard or is redone, which is the correct model for a field where partial credit does not exist.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement.

Two field-specific notes. Credit transfer is secondary to FAA training transfer: what matters when moving between schools is how the receiving Part 147 school credits your completed training, which is a separate determination from the registrar's. And A.S. degrees in aviation maintenance are applied degrees that do not carry the A.A.'s guaranteed junior-status transfer; students planning a bachelor's in aviation management should discuss the pathway early.