WTI raises the bar with new curriculum
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION MIRAMAR / 3RD MARINE AIRCRAFT WING
A new course has been added to this year’s Weapons and Tactics Instructor Course (WTI), held at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona.
Advanced Aircraft Maintenance Officers Course (AAMOC) is a second-level graduate school for professional aircraft maintenance officers in the Marine Corps.
After the initial school for aircraft maintainers at Naval Air Station Whiting Field, Fla., there are limited follow-on training opportunities. AAMOC is the first of its kind, and the expectation is to increase standardization, improve aircraft readiness, and to minimize aircraft mishaps.
“Our primary school we go to is a Navy school, and that program is extremely successful for the Navy and its officers, but when Marines graduate, we train slightly different once we leave the school,” said 1st Lt. Jared Hasson, MAWTS-1 assistant aircraft maintenance officer and AAMOC instructor from Winter Haven, Fla.
In an ever evolving job field, the course’s main purpose is to create a higher understanding and standardized learning platform for professional maintenance officers.
“There are training gaps with what is taught in the school house, and what is actually being done in the fleet,” said Capt. Scott Campbell, an AAMOC developer and chief instructor from Amarillo, Texas. “This class is an attempt to formalize, consolidate and structure information that goes into the fleet that isn’t getting taught to the Marines.”
The curriculum consists of an initial and final exam, and roughly 62 hours of academic course work, with additional training outside the classroom. There will be daily evaluations of the students by the instructors on class work, practical applications and projects. The students will receive grades on every subject, and must maintain an average of 80 percent to graduate. The course will run a total of seven weeks.
“If every person in the classroom is able to walk away with something they didn’t know beforehand, then I would deem this a success,” said Campbell. “This isn’t going to immediately stem the flow or in no way is designed to be the sole thing that fixes aircraft readiness. But teaching our maintenance officers how to better utilize their aircraft, where the demand of the aircraft comes from and how to manage that, absolutely contributes to better readiness numbers.”
Graduation is scheduled for April 30, the end of WTI. Graduates from AAMOC will be granted signing authority for 2000 level codes in the newly minted T&R manual, and will be referred to as Maintenance and Training Instructors (MTI).
Emergency birth for pregnant woman trapped in Arizona crash
PHOENIX — Authorities say a woman who was eight months pregnant was found trapped in the driver’s seat of a van that had crashed in Arizona.
The Phoenix fire department said the crash happened about 1:30 p.m. Sunday on Interstate 17 in the northern part of the city.
It took crews 15 minutes to extricate the pregnant woman, who was then taken to the hospital for an emergency cesarean birth.
The condition of the newborn is unknown but authorities say the woman is in critical condition with multiple injuries including broken legs and an arm.
The woman’s three children were rescued from the van by bystanders and also suffered critical injuries.
The girls, aged 14 and 6, and a 5-year-old boy are in