Part 145 Training Records Requirements: What Belongs in Every Mechanic's File
There is one request that exposes a shop's recordkeeping faster than any other: "show me the training records for the technician who signed this return to service." If that answer lives in a binder, a spreadsheet, and someone's memory, you already know how the next hour goes.
Here is what Part 145 training records requirements actually cover, what a complete file looks like, and how to make the inspector's question a ten second answer instead of a weekend project. As always, your FAA-approved training program, Repair Station Manual, and ops specs govern; nothing here replaces them.
What the FAA requires
Under 14 CFR 145.163, a certificated repair station must have an FAA-approved training program that ensures each employee assigned to perform maintenance, preventive maintenance, alterations, or inspections is capable of performing the assigned task. The regulation also requires you to document each individual's training and keep those records for a minimum of two years. Your approved program spells out the specifics: initial training, recurrent training, and any task-specific or model-specific requirements for the work on your capability list.
Notice what the rule does not say: it does not prescribe a format. Binders, spreadsheets, and software are all acceptable on paper. What matters to the inspector is whether you can produce a current, complete, attributable file for any employee on request, and whether the training shown actually matches the work that person is signing for.
What a complete training file looks like
- Qualifications: certificates held (A&P, IA, repairman), plus the ratings and authorizations that define what the person may sign for in your shop.
- Training history: initial, recurrent, and task-specific training, each entry dated and attributable to whoever conducted or verified it.
- Class records with signatures: proof of attendance and completion that an inspector can trace to a real person, not an unsigned spreadsheet row.
- Supporting documents: copies of certificates, drug and alcohol program paperwork where applicable, employment and work history, and anything else your manual requires in the employment summary.
- A roster that matches reality: the people signing work orders today should match the qualifications on file today, not the roster from two audits ago.
How Orion handles training records
In Orion, every mechanic has a profile, and the profile does the enforcing for you:
- Ratings that actually gate signatures. Set each mechanic's ratings and authorizations on their profile, and the system will only let them sign off aircraft they are rated for. The authorization check happens at the signature, not at the audit.
- Full training history on the profile: initial, recurrent, and task-specific entries in one timeline per person.
- Classes signed electronically. Training classes are recorded with signatures, backed by the same AC 120-78B compliant e-signature system that signs your work orders: attributable, re-authenticated, and tamper-evident.
- Document storage on each profile for A&P certificates, drug and alcohol program documents, work history, and any other qualification paperwork, so the employment summary is a click, not a cabinet.
When the inspector asks who was qualified to sign that RTS, the answer is the mechanic's profile: ratings, training history, signed class records, and supporting documents in one place, tied to the same login that signed the work.
Training records is one of the modules you can include when you build your own Orion. If audit prep still means pulling binders, schedule a call and we will walk through a training file on a live system.