Advice

So, you’re a military aircraft mechanic sitting in the breakroom waiting for your jet to come back and you mention to a buddy that you are thinking about getting your FAA A&P license. From across the room, a “crusty” E-6 butts in with, “Don’t waste your time. I have a job lined up working as a contractor on these very jets and they don’t require an A&P and they are going to pay me x dollars an hour.”

This E-6 gets in your head and you start second-guessing yourself about getting your A&P. After all, you work long hours and have a very full life with little downtime. Maybe it might be better to just go the contractor route. But before you let E-6 Crusty make a major life decision for you just think about a few things.

1. Many of those contractors often automatically pay people with A&P’s $2 – $5 an hour more for doing the same job.
2. They also frequently require an A&P as a prerequisite to be an Inspector, Supervisor, or Manager.
3. When layoffs happen, contractors usually cut the least qualified people.
4. Defense spending goes through cycles and sometimes the government goes heavy on contractors and then sometimes they cut them back. Jobs can evaporate overnight.
5. If you want to stay in the contract you may have to move just as much as you did in the military, in part because of #4 above.
6. What happens if contracting jobs dry up and you don’t have an A&P? Believe me, you won’t be happy with mechanics helper pay.
7. The civilian aviation jobs that you can apply for will be severely limited by not having your A&P and your pay will nearly always be lower.

Now those are just a few things to consider and there are more. But having said that please give some thought to the following.

You can get your A&P in as little as two weeks and in most cases, the military pays all the tuition. Yes, you may have to cover a small amount in travel expenses but there are programs to even help with some of that. And surprise, surprise, prep schools are eligible for Permissive TDY for Air Force personnel.

So just balance that against what E-6 Crusty told you. Does his advice sound like good advice?