im considering a career change to become an aviation maintenance technician. im curious to here some insight from someone that is actually in this field. it seems to be a good career choice for the future with plenty of job opportunities,benefits, etc... im 28 years old with a college degree but im tired of working an office job and i know this is not what i want to do for the rest of my life.

 

DO NOT I REPEAT DOOOO NOOOOOOOT go to work for the AIRLINES, they will enslave you, never pay a decent wage and will draw as much blood out of you as possible, Airline management is the lowest of the low, real scumbags..........

-A fellow airline employee

 

former aviation maintenance technician for the military...unfun
loving my desk job now.

 

sounds like a fun job but it is the complete opposite. I've been working on c-130's, c-17's, and c-5's for the AF for the last five years and wish I would have chosen a better career field.

 

wow. i definitely wasnt expecting those responses. what is it exactly that you do not like? i enjoy working with my hands far more than sitting at a desk staring at a computer screen. the pay seems very good(especially for oklahoma cost of living), benefits, vacations, holidays, job security. oklahoma is a hotbed for aviation jobs and with boeing moving a facility to oklahoma they are opening up about 600 more jobs.

 

Well, I can tell you from working at the airlines, that (much like MX guys) we have a HUGE amount of responsibility, yet the pay and benefits and treatment from management, you would think we were shoveling shit. We are held to the HIGHEST standards, are expected to know 5 PHONE BOOKS worth of knowledge. held accountable for everything, yet once again pay, and Quality of Life would not reflect it. No doubt you would make great friends and leanr a lot, but it comes at a cost, at least for me. Last night I landed an airplane, full of HUMAN BEINGS in 1/4 mile visibility (at 160mph landing speed thats not much vis) 200ft overcast ceilings and blowing Heavy SNOW, to have a few passengers tell me they wanted to complain because we were late, I also received a voicemail that CONTINENTAL AIRLINES, is essentially stripping us of our travel benefits, no more buddy passes and took away a certain type of pass that allowed me 1st class if it was open, these passes I had earned for YEARS of service, they basically told the employees to **** off

Look, I am ranting and I could go on and on, but whatever you do, don't work for the airlines, it will leave you an angry, bitter man, much like myself

 

^^

Have a family member that's a pilot for American Airlines, he's retiring after 25+ years for some of the same reasons you've stated.

 

thats good to know about the airlines. i have a few friends that currently work at tinker air force base(they are not in the military). that is where i would like to end up anyways

 

my supervisor was a crew chief.
his words " worst time in my life, long hours, ruined my marriage". He enjoy now his new desk job.

 

I'm currently an avionics tech for mq-1's. I started on hornets in the military, then when I got out I started contracting. There's good money to be made doing it, and it can be an enjoyable job. The only problem with the jobs out there for it is the ones that tend to pay better (30+/hr) tend to be in really bad locations or places with very high cost of living. Over all I like it. As far as contracting, military jobs tend to pay the most but they usually want to see experience on airframe. When I was looking for jobs at civilan airports, they seemed to be closer to the 16-20/hr range, and wanted avionics techs to be a&p licensed.