Online IA Renewal Seminars: Coming soon from AMT to a computer near you

Sept. 1, 2004

Publisher's Sign-off

Online IA Renewal Seminars

Coming soon from AMT to a computer near you

By Greg Napert

September 2004

Do you have difficulty scheduling one day a year for IA renewal? Do the seminars offered in your state require you to take planes, trains, and other forms of transportation cross-country in order to attend? Tired of spending money on hotel/motels and other accommodations? Fear not. AMT magazine, with the support of the FAA and several sponsors, is now ready to offer the aircraft maintenance community IA renewal/AMT Awards seminars on the Internet!

Beginning soon, AMT's virtual IA renewal/AMT Awards seminars will make their debut on the AMT web site. Visitors to www.AMTonline can click onto the virtual IA renewal meeting and read about how the program works.

The concept is simple, we provide the same Powerpoint presentations (including the audio) that you would receive at the annual IA renewal meetings held around the country. The difference is you are now able to attend in one-hour increments at your convenience, from any location with Internet access ' 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, as often as you like.

New technology and improved bandwidth now make it possible to run what we call 'Webinars' (or web seminars) over most Internet connections. What this means is that even slow Internet connections will provide enough bandwidth to view the Webinars.

To participate, all you need to do is click to the virtual IA renewal meeting site and register. Note the $20 registration fee to cover administrative costs ' this will cover all courses offered at this site for an entire year! Next, select the seminar you want to attend from sources such as the FAA, Lycoming Engines, Duncan Aviation, Kelly Aerospace, and more. Each course is one hour ' so you will only have to commit to one hour at a time. At the end of the seminar, a small five to 10 question test will be administered to verify your attendance. Upon successful completion of the test, a certificate will be mailed to you. By combining six hours of technical seminars with two hours of regulatory (FAA) seminars, you will be eligible to renew your IA. As a bonus, all seminars will also be accepted toward the FAA AMT Awards Program (offering Bronze, Silver, Gold, Ruby, and Diamond awards).

AMT and its sponsors also want to bring you the same interaction that is available from attending seminars in person. This will be done by providing a link, in some cases, to the seminar host(s) so you can ask questions or make comments following any seminar. Additionally, we will provide forums on AMT's web site for each seminar so that you can discuss the material presented in the forum(s) with your peers.

We're quite thrilled to be able to offer this option to the maintenance industry. We encourage you to tell your friends about this new offering from AMT magazine and hope we can continue to provide innovative and creative ways to make your job easier and make aircraft safer.

After giving the virtual IA renewal seminars a try, please give us your feedback. We will be refining and improving the site based on your suggestions as time goes on.

Looking forward to seeing you at our virtual IA renewal/AMT Awards seminar.

Greg Napert
Proud to be an A&P