Aerospace NDT Consulting in Wichita: Getting a Tier-2 Shop Through AC7114
Wichita's tier-2 shops sell into Spirit AeroSystems, Textron Aviation and Bell's V-280 fuselage assembly line, and each buyer flows down Nadcap AC7114. Accreditation turns on a written practice signed by a qualified Level III, method procedures carrying that same approval, and personnel files built to NAS 410 Revision 5. Atlantis supplies that Level III under contract.
Wichita is the densest aerostructures supply base in the United States: roughly 350 supplier firms in the greater Wichita region feeding fuselage and flight-deck production, Textron Aviation's Cessna and Beechcraft programs, Airbus's A220 pylon work, and Bell's Wichita Assembly Center building V-280 fuselages. Almost none of those shops buy NDT from outside — they run penetrant, magnetic particle and ultrasonic in-house because the primes require in-process inspection. That makes each of them an NDT employer under NAS 410, which requires a named Responsible Level 3 to author the written practice, approve every method procedure, and administer qualification examinations. Boeing's 2025 acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems reset supplier quality flowdown across the region, and Nadcap AC7114 accreditation is the yardstick the reset is measured against. An outsourced Level III fills the role for the shops that cannot justify a full-time one — the common case between twenty and a hundred and fifty employees.
Source: Verified against: Nadcap AC7114 audit criteria and the Performance Review Institute's 30-day self-audit requirement; NAS 410 Revision 5 (September 2020), including the 75%/100% experience gates for specific and practical examinations; FAA AC 65-31B, Training, Qualification, and Certification of Nondestructive Inspection Personnel; 14 CFR 145.155, Inspection personnel requirements; Greater Wichita Partnership aerospace industry profile (supplier counts, NIAR, NCAT, Eisenhower National and Jabara Airport tenants); Spirit AeroSystems corporate record on the Boeing acquisition and the Airbus transfer of Wichita A220 pylon production; Bell Textron FLRAA facility announcements naming the Wichita Assembly Center; Kaman Composite Structures FAA Part 145 certification at Wichita; Learjet final delivery, March 2022.
| Approval route | Who flows it down locally | What the Level III must produce | Where first-time applicants fail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nadcap AC7114 baseline | Boeing's Wichita operation, Textron Aviation, Bell, and the other Nadcap subscriber primes | Written practice, controlled method procedures, technique sheets, and a self-audit answered before the visit | The written practice is written to SNT-TC-1A while the customer contract calls NAS 410 |
| Method supplements (PT, MT, UT, RT, ET) | Any shop running its own penetrant line, magnetic particle bench, UT station or radiography vault | A method procedure approved by a Level III qualified in that specific method | A Level III certified in two methods signing procedures covering four |
| NAS 410 personnel qualification | Every aerostructures prime in the metro, flowed to tier-2 and tier-3 | Training records, experience logs meeting the 75% and 100% gates, exam packages, annual evaluations | Experience hours are logged correctly but examinations were administered before the 75% gate |
| AS9100 special process control | Tier-1 integrators auditing subcontracted NDT | Validation evidence tying operator qualification to the controlled process | NDT is treated as an inspection step rather than a special process requiring validation |
| 14 CFR Part 145 repair-station route | Wichita's MRO and modification layer and its subcontract shops | An NDI program written into the repair station manual, consistent with AC 65-31B | A manufacturing written practice is pasted verbatim into a repair station manual |
| Prime-specific process approval | Individual buyer quality flowdowns sitting above Nadcap | Procedures written to that customer's process specification and acceptance criteria | One generic ultrasonic procedure is submitted to three primes with three different acceptance criteria |
What Wichita's supply base actually sends through a penetrant line
The Wichita plant Boeing acquired from Spirit AeroSystems in 2025 builds fuselage sections for the 737 and 787 plus flight deck sections for most Boeing airliners — roughly seventy percent of the 737's structure originates there. Textron Aviation builds Cessna and Beechcraft airframes across the city and keeps its headquarters at Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport alongside more than sixty other aviation businesses. Airbus took over the A220 pylon line in Wichita during the same transaction, and Bell's Wichita Assembly Center builds V-280 fuselages for the Army's Future Long Range Assault Aircraft.
None of that hardware reaches final assembly without inspection, and most of the inspection happens upstream. Fluorescent penetrant runs on machined aluminium and titanium details. Magnetic particle runs on steel fittings, gear components and forgings. Ultrasonic runs on plate stock, bonded composite structure and thin machined pockets. Radiography runs on castings and fusion welds. Those processes sit inside the roughly 350 supplier firms in the greater Wichita region rather than inside the primes, which is exactly why the audit burden lands on companies with twenty to a hundred and fifty employees.
That distribution is the commercial fact behind this page. A shop operating a penetrant line, a magnetic particle bench or an ultrasonic station is an NDT employer under the National Aerospace Standard NAS 410, whatever its headcount. It owes a written practice, controlled method procedures, qualification examinations and personnel records — the same obligations Textron Aviation carries, discharged by a company with one quality manager, two inspectors and nobody holding a Level III certificate.
The regime: NAS 410 first, AC7114 second, the prime's own list third
NAS 410 Revision 5, issued in September 2020, remains the current revision and is the aerospace industry's personnel qualification standard. It defines Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 and Senior Level 3, requires the employer to maintain a written practice, and requires a named Responsible Level 3 to own the programme. Revision 5 tightened the sequencing that trips up most first-time applicants: the specific examination is administered after a minimum of 75% of the required experience hours, and the practical examination after 100%.
Nadcap AC7114 is the baseline nondestructive testing audit criteria administered by the Performance Review Institute, supported by method-specific supplements covering penetrant, magnetic particle, ultrasonic, radiography and eddy current. There is no route to a method accreditation that skips the AC7114 baseline. The programme also requires the supplier to complete a self-audit against the official checklists at least thirty days before the auditor arrives — a step small shops routinely discover a fortnight out.
The third gate is the one Wichita suppliers underestimate. A prime's own approved-processor listing sits above Nadcap, with its own process specifications and acceptance criteria. Holding the certificate does not put a shop on the list. Our Nadcap AC7114 audit readiness work treats the two as separate deliverables, because a supplier that clears the audit and still cannot ship has bought nothing.
Why the Level III chair sits empty in Wichita specifically
Wichita produces NDT technicians in volume. The National Center for Aviation Training at WSU Tech runs nondestructive testing programmes alongside composites and aviation maintenance. The National Institute for Aviation Research operates six locations across the city with more than a million square feet of laboratory space, and the metro carries roughly eleven thousand engineering-related employees across manufacturers and suppliers. Level I and Level II candidates are available here in a way they simply are not in most American manufacturing regions.
What the metro does not produce in volume is Level IIIs, and the few it produces get absorbed immediately. A sixty-person machine shop on the west side competes for that person against Boeing's Wichita operation, Textron Aviation, Bell and NIAR — organisations that can offer a career ladder, method breadth and a research budget. The shop loses that competition every time, then discovers its next audit has no signatory.
The outsourced arrangement exists because the alternative is a vacancy. Under contract, an ASNT Level III occupies the Responsible Level 3 role NAS 410 defines, holds the method scope the shop actually needs, and is present for the audit. The shop pays for the function rather than the headcount, and the function is what the auditor is looking for.
The ninety days before an AC7114 audit
The first task is not opening the checklist. It is reading the customer flowdowns — the purchase order clauses, the process specifications and the acceptance criteria each Wichita prime imposes — and building the written practice backwards from them. A written practice assembled from a template will pass a superficial read and fail on the first traceability trace, because the template does not know that one customer calls NAS 410 while another names an internal spec. Building the written practice from the customer specifications backwards is the whole job.
Procedures come next, and they have to be method-specific, part-family-specific and approved by a Level III qualified in that method. A generic ultrasonic procedure covering plate, forgings and bonded composite in four pages is a finding waiting to happen. Technique sheets have to name the reference standard, the equipment configuration and the scan plan. Method procedures written to the customer's process specification are what survive an auditor's sampling.
Personnel files close the sequence. Every technician needs a training record, an experience log meeting the Revision 5 gates, general, specific and practical examination packages, vision test results and an annual evaluation. The self-audit is then run against the official checklists and answered thirty days before the visit. Shops that start this ninety days out finish it. Shops that start six weeks out reschedule.
Composite bondline inspection is the Wichita-specific technical problem
No other American aerospace metro concentrates composite structure the way Wichita does. Fuselage sections for the 787 are built here. Kaman Composite Structures runs off-aircraft composite repair, inspection and testing in the city. NIAR was designated lead institution for the Center of Excellence in Composites and Advanced Materials by NASA and the FAA. Bell's rotorcraft structure is composite-heavy, and the V-280 fuselage assembly work now landing in Wichita brings that content with it.
That changes what a competent NDT programme looks like. Bonded structure is inspected by through-transmission and pulse-echo ultrasonics, resonance and mechanical impedance methods, and occasionally thermography — against reference standards containing engineered disbonds and porosity levels that match the laminate being inspected. A procedure that names a generic step wedge instead of the correct reference standard is not a procedure an auditor will accept.
The implication for the Level III is method scope. A Level III holding penetrant and magnetic particle only cannot approve ultrasonic procedures for bonded structure, cannot examine the technicians running them, and cannot answer the auditor's questions about reference standard control and calibration intervals. Wichita engagements should be scoped on the methods the shop actually operates, not the methods that were cheapest to certify.
The repair-station layer: Wichita's MRO and modification work
Eisenhower National hosts what is described as the world's largest general aviation MRO facility. Kaman Composite Structures holds an FAA Part 145 repair station certificate at its Wichita location for off-aircraft composite repair, inspection and testing. Embraer runs a business jet service centre at Colonel James Jabara Airport. Bombardier continues to support the Learjet fleet from Wichita after the final Learjet 75 was delivered on 28 March 2022. Around all of them sits a subcontract layer of paint, machining, plating and inspection shops.
This layer answers to a different authority. 14 CFR 145.155 requires a certificated repair station to ensure inspection personnel are thoroughly familiar with the applicable regulations and inspection methods and proficient with the equipment involved. The NDI programme itself lives in the repair station manual, and FAA AC 65-31B sets out the recommended criteria for training, qualifying and certifying nondestructive inspection personnel. The Part 145 side of aviation NDT is governed by an FAA acceptance, not a Nadcap certificate.
A Wichita firm that does both — and many do — needs both documents. The technician certifications can be common where scope and method match, but a NAS 410 written practice pasted into a repair station manual will be rejected, and an FAA-accepted NDI programme submitted at an AC7114 audit clears nothing. Two governing documents, one Level III, one set of people.
New owners, new flowdowns: what changed in Wichita in 2025
Boeing completed its acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems in 2025, and Airbus simultaneously took ownership of the Wichita A220 pylon production. One site that had operated under a single supplier quality system now feeds two different customers with two different sets of process specifications and two different auditor populations. Suppliers who had one flowdown to satisfy now reconcile two, and the reconciliation shows up first in NDT because NDT is where the acceptance criteria differ most.
Bell's Wichita Assembly Center adds a third pattern. A new production programme means a new supplier approval cycle, and shops that hold current accreditation get invited into it while shops that let it lapse re-audit from scratch. Bell's June 2026 reduction of 285 positions across Fort Worth, Amarillo and Wichita is a reminder of how fast this base resets — the suppliers who stay qualified are the ones positioned for the next award rather than the last one.
The same logic runs down I-35 to the Texas fighter and rotorcraft base, where the mix of build-side and repair-side audit regimes is even sharper. Our Fort Worth and DFW aerospace NDT page covers that market. Firms with plants in both metros usually run one written practice with two site annexes rather than two independent programmes.
What the outsourced Level III will not do for a Wichita shop
The signature does not create compliance. An outside Level III cannot certify a technician he has not examined, cannot approve a procedure for a method he is not qualified in, and cannot make experience hours appear that were never logged. NAS 410 leaves responsibility for the programme with the employer regardless of who holds the pen — a point auditors make explicitly when they ask who the Responsible Level 3 reports to inside the company.
Nor does the arrangement replace the quality manager. Someone on site controls the documents, maintains the calibration records, keeps the reference standards under control and runs the day-to-day process. The Level III sets the technical requirements, approves the technical documents, examines the people and attends the audit. Shops that expect the outside Level III to also run the quality system are buying the wrong service.
What Atlantis provides is the qualified signatory, the documents that signatory is willing to sign, the examination programme behind the certifications, and attendance when the auditor arrives. It is affordable, accessible and fully customisable to the methods and customers a given Wichita shop actually has. Tell us your customers and audit date and we will scope it — quote on request.
Does a Wichita tier-2 shop need Nadcap accreditation if it only runs in-process penetrant?
Yes, when the customer contract calls for it. Nadcap AC7114 attaches to the process, not the product stage. A shop running fluorescent penetrant on its own machined details for a Nadcap subscriber prime is performing an accredited special process and needs the baseline AC7114 accreditation plus the penetrant method supplement. In-house use for internal screening only is the sole exception.
Can an outsourced Level III sign the written practice, or does NAS 410 require an employee?
NAS 410 permits an outside Level 3 engaged under contract, and the aerospace industry has used the arrangement for decades. What the standard does not permit is ambiguity: the written practice must name the Responsible Level 3, define the scope of that person's authority by method, and show that the employer retains responsibility for the program. Auditors check the contract, not just the signature.
How long before an AC7114 audit should a Wichita supplier bring in a Level III?
Six months for a first accreditation, because the personnel files are the long pole. NAS 410 Revision 5 requires the specific examination after 75% of the experience hours and the practical after 100%, so technicians short on documented hours cannot be examined into compliance on a deadline. The Performance Review Institute also requires a completed self-audit thirty days before the visit.
My shop does new-build work for Textron Aviation and repair work under Part 145. Do I need two programs?
Two documents, one Level III. The manufacturing side runs on a NAS 410 written practice audited under AC7114. The repair station side runs on an NDI program described inside the repair station manual and accepted by the FAA under 14 CFR 145.155 and AC 65-31B. The same person can author and sign both, and the technician certifications can be common, but the governing documents stay separate.
What does an AC7114 auditor open first in a small Wichita shop?
The written practice, then the personnel file of whoever last signed a report. The auditor traces one part backwards: report signature to certification record, certification record to examination package, examination package to the written practice clause that authorised it, and the procedure used back to the customer's process specification. A break anywhere in that chain is the finding.
We inspect composite bonded structure. Which method qualification does the Level III need?
Ultrasonic, at minimum, and the procedure has to name the specific reference standard. Wichita's composite density — fuselage sections, Kaman's off-aircraft repair work, Bell rotorcraft structure — means through-transmission and pulse-echo scanning against engineered-disbond standards. A Level III qualified only in penetrant and magnetic particle cannot approve those procedures, and an auditor will catch the mismatch in the first hour.