Top 12 Aircraft Maintenance Technician Skills to Put on Your Resume
A standout resume for an aircraft maintenance technician must showcase a blend of technical prowess, precision, and safety consciousness. Spotlight the skills that prove you can find faults fast, fix them right, and document everything cleanly—hiring managers notice.
Aircraft Maintenance Technician Skills
- Troubleshooting
- Avionics
- Hydraulics
- Pneumatics
- Welding
- Fiberglass Repair
- Borescope Inspection
- Non-Destructive Testing (NDT)
- Engine Diagnostics
- Electrical Systems
- Fuel Systems
- Composite Materials
1. Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting, for an Aircraft Maintenance Technician, means methodically diagnosing and isolating faults across aircraft systems and components, getting to root cause, then performing the correct repair or adjustment—no guesswork, just evidence.
Why It's Important
It keeps aircraft safe, reliable, and on schedule. Swift fault isolation cuts downtime, protects compliance, and prevents repeat defects. Safety margins grow when problems are found early and fixed properly.
How to Improve Troubleshooting Skills
Sharpen troubleshooting with a disciplined, repeatable approach that blends system knowledge, data, and clean execution:
Understand Systems Thoroughly: Deepen knowledge of aircraft systems, architectures, and normal ops. Study airframe, engine, and component manuals and standard handbooks.
Follow Methodical Processes: Use a structured flow—verify the reported symptom, define the system boundary, test inputs/outputs, isolate, confirm, fix, and re-test.
Use Diagnostic Technology: Exploit test sets, built-in test equipment, portable data loaders, and maintenance software. Learn their quirks and limits.
Keep Learning: New aircraft, new tooling, new logic. Take recurrent training and review service bulletins and maintenance tips from reputable industry sources.
Think Critically: Correlate data from multiple systems. Challenge assumptions. Document observations before swapping parts.
Safety First: Respect procedures, lockouts, and hazard controls. A careful tech lives to fix another day.
It’s a craft. Time on tools plus disciplined thinking is the difference between chasing ghosts and solving problems.
How to Display Troubleshooting Skills on Your Resume
2. Avionics
Avionics covers the aircraft’s electronic ecosystem: navigation, communication, surveillance, flight control interfaces, power conversion, and monitoring systems. You install, inspect, test, repair, and sign off the gear that keeps pilots informed and the aircraft compliant.
Why It's Important
Because avionics governs navigation, communication, and system health, its reliability is directly tied to safety, airspace access, and operational efficiency. A glitch here can ground the jet or worse.
How to Improve Avionics Skills
Stay sharp and current across software, hardware, and integration:
Continuous Education: Recurrent training on new avionics suites, software loads, and databus architectures. Refresh on human factors and error prevention.
System Integration Mastery: Understand how LRUs talk—ARINC buses, power quality, grounding, antenna placement, and interference management.
Standards and Regulations: Work to current regulatory guidance and manufacturer data. Know the difference between minor and major changes.
Preventive Maintenance: Clean connections, check harness routing and chafe points, verify bonding/grounding, and keep detailed config control.
Manufacturer Support: Use OEM service info, service letters, and troubleshooting trees. Log anomalies to spot patterns.
Knowledge ages fast in avionics. Keep updating or get left behind.
How to Display Avionics Skills on Your Resume
3. Hydraulics
Hydraulics uses pressurized fluid to actuate heavy hitters: landing gear, flaps, slats, spoilers, thrust reversers, brakes on many types, and more. Precision meets brute force.
Why It's Important
These systems move and stop the aircraft. Any contamination, leak, or mis-rig can cascade into serious safety risks. Tight control here keeps the airplane honest.
How to Improve Hydraulics Skills
Raise reliability and reduce rework by focusing on fundamentals:
Regular Maintenance: Meticulous leak checks, filter changes, accumulator pre-charge checks, and fluid condition sampling per schedule and environment.
System Knowledge: Know pumps, actuators, PTUs, RATs, priority valves, and failure modes. Study schematics until they’re second nature. Boeing/Airbus/engine OEM training helps.
Use of Correct Fluids: Only approved fluids. Watch mixing limits, shelf life, and contamination controls.
Leak Detection and Repair: Use dyes, paper, and pressure decay testing where applicable. Replace seals correctly and torque to spec.
Keep Current: New seals, new filters, new test equipment—stay aware of service improvements and tooling updates.
Proper Tooling: The right flare tools, torque wrenches, caps/plugs, and cleanliness kits prevent damage you can’t see—until it bites.
Hydraulics punish shortcuts. Clean work wins.
How to Display Hydraulics Skills on Your Resume
4. Pneumatics
Pneumatics harnesses compressed air or bleed air for tasks like engine starting, de-ice boots, pressurization and environmental control systems, some door mechanisms, and specific brake systems on certain light aircraft. On most transport-category jets, primary flight controls and landing gear are hydraulic, not pneumatic.
Why It's Important
Air systems affect pressurization, ice protection, engine starts, and cabin comfort—big-ticket safety and reliability items. Leaks, contamination, or valve issues can ground an aircraft or create insidious performance problems.
How to Improve Pneumatics Skills
Boost safety and uptime with disciplined checks and smarter repairs:
Regular Inspections: Hunt for leaks, loose fittings, line wear, and corrosion. Ultrasonic leak detectors and soap solutions are your friends.
Preventive Maintenance: Replace hoses, filters, and seals based on time-in-service and condition trends, not just minimum intervals.
Quality Parts: Approved, traceable components only. Avoid mixing seal materials that aren’t compatible.
System Upgrades: Where approved, newer regulators and valves can improve stability and reduce maintenance.
Training and Education: Stay current on ECS, anti-ice, and start system logic and test procedures.
Proper Tool Use: Torque correctly, support tubing, and protect lines during maintenance to avoid hidden damage.
Sealing Techniques: Use approved sealants and correct torque for leak-free joints. Re-torque after temperature cycles if specified.
Dry air, tight joints, clear logic—pneumatics done right hums along quietly.
How to Display Pneumatics Skills on Your Resume
5. Welding
Welding fuses metals—often aluminum, stainless, or titanium in aviation—using heat and filler to create a strong joint. Repairs, brackets, and structural restorations demand care and certification.
Why It's Important
Sound welds restore strength and geometry. Bad ones hide cracks, invite corrosion, and jeopardize airworthiness. In aviation, quality isn’t negotiable.
How to Improve Welding Skills
Elevate precision and repeatability:
Know the Standards: Follow aviation welding requirements and approved data. Keep procedures current and documented.
Practice Precision: Consistent bead width, heat control, penetration—practice on representative alloys and thicknesses.
Material Knowledge: Understand heat treat states, conductivity, and cleanliness demands for aluminum, titanium, and steels.
Safety: Ventilation, PPE, fire watches, and FOD control. No shortcuts.
Continuous Learning: Update methods such as TIG refinements, laser, and friction stir where applicable and approved.
Quality Control: Incorporate visual inspection, dye penetrant, and other NDT methods when required. Record parameters.
Clean prep, correct technique, compliant documentation—that’s the recipe.
How to Display Welding Skills on Your Resume
6. Fiberglass Repair
Fiberglass repair restores damaged fairings, radomes, and other non-structural components using resin systems and fiberglass cloth, bringing back shape, smoothness, and aerodynamic cleanliness.
Why It's Important
Intact surfaces reduce drag, protect internals, and prevent water ingress. Poor repairs crack, blister, and add rework. Good ones disappear into the airframe.
How to Improve Fiberglass Repair Skills
Better methods, fewer do-overs:
Know the Materials: Resin types, cloth weights, cure schedules, and compatibility with existing parts.
Damage Assessment: Map out delamination, moisture, and core issues. Mark edges and taper repairs correctly.
Surface Preparation: Clean, dry, decontaminated, and properly abraded surfaces drive adhesion. No silicone surprises.
Resin/Hardener Control: Accurate mix ratios, temperature control, and pot life management prevent weak bonds.
Layering and Cure: Orient plies properly, remove air, and cure per spec. Heat blankets and vacuum bagging when required.
Finishing: Fair, sand, seal, and paint to spec. Keep thickness and balance in mind around moving parts.
Training: Refresh composite repair techniques regularly and follow approved repair documents.
Composite work rewards patience and punishes contamination. Slow is smooth; smooth is fast.
How to Display Fiberglass Repair Skills on Your Resume
7. Borescope Inspection
Borescope inspection is a non-destructive visual exam of internal components—engines, airframes, gearboxes—through small access points using flexible or rigid scopes. See inside without tearing the machine apart.
Why It's Important
It catches defects, FOD, heat distress, and wear early, reducing unnecessary removals and keeping maintenance targeted. Less guesswork, more certainty.
How to Improve Borescope Inspection Skills
Turn images into insight:
Advanced Training: Update technique frequently—lighting, tip articulation, measurement overlays, and documentation standards.
Use Capable Equipment: High-resolution imaging, adjustable light, measurement capability, and durable insertion tubes suited to the job.
Follow OEM Guidance: Use the aircraft and engine maintenance manuals for required inspection points, pass/fail criteria, and recording.
Systematic Coverage: Create checklists and consistent sweep patterns. Record and label findings clearly.
Peer Review: When in doubt, get a second set of eyes. Pattern recognition improves with team experience.
Stay Current: Track service bulletins and known issue areas by model.
Good borescope work is equal parts steady hands and sharp judgment.
How to Display Borescope Inspection Skills on Your Resume
8. Non-Destructive Testing (NDT)
NDT evaluates component integrity without harming it—methods like eddy current, ultrasonic, radiography, magnetic particle, and dye penetrant find cracks, corrosion, and subsurface flaws while keeping parts in service.
Why It's Important
NDT supports airworthiness by detecting defects before they grow. The right method, performed correctly and calibrated, keeps structure and systems trustworthy.
How to Improve Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Skills
Accuracy and reliability come from rigor:
Ongoing Training: Maintain current certifications and refresh on technique specifics, indications, and limitations.
Modern Equipment: Use calibrated, well-maintained gear with appropriate probes, films, or sensors for the job.
Quality Control: Apply written procedures, technique sheets, and acceptance criteria. Audit often.
Data Analysis: Leverage software and standardized reporting to reduce interpretation errors.
Multi-Technique Approach: Combine methods when needed to confirm calls and improve coverage.
Calibration and Care: Calibrate to standards at specified intervals. Protect equipment from shock and contamination.
Community and Mentorship: Share case studies and review edge cases with experienced practitioners.
Repeatable process beats hunches. Let the indications lead you.
How to Display Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Skills on Your Resume
9. Engine Diagnostics
Engine diagnostics means interrogating engine data, inspecting internals, and interpreting fault codes and trends to pinpoint wear, malfunctions, or control issues—before they escalate.
Why It's Important
Engines are high-stakes. Early detection protects safety, dispatch reliability, and cost. Healthy margins come from smart monitoring and precise corrective actions.
How to Improve Engine Diagnostics Skills
Blend data literacy with hands-on savvy:
Continuous Education: Stay current on engine models, control systems, and health monitoring methods.
Advanced Tools: Use borescopes, vibration analysis, trend monitoring, and engine health monitoring systems effectively.
Follow Best Practices: Adhere to OEM troubleshooting steps and approved data. Verify after each fix with performance and leak checks.
Hands-on Time: Work alongside seasoned techs. Study failure signatures and compare against normal baselines.
Network and Share: Discuss recurring snags and unusual trends with peers to speed accurate diagnoses.
Let data speak, but verify with your eyes and instruments.
How to Display Engine Diagnostics Skills on Your Resume
10. Electrical Systems
Aircraft electrical systems generate, condition, distribute, and consume power—generators, batteries, buses, circuit protection, contactors, wiring, and end loads like avionics and motors. Maintenance means inspection, testing, repair, and meticulous documentation.
Why It's Important
Power quality and continuity underpin navigation, communication, control, and comfort. A weak crimp or chafed wire can snowball into major faults.
How to Improve Electrical Systems Skills
Build resilience into every connection:
Regular Inspections: Look for heat distress, corrosion, chafing, and loose terminations. Inspect hidden runs with mirrors or scopes.
Preventive Maintenance: Clean contacts, verify torque and security, replace aged wiring and clamps, and keep moisture out.
Smart Upgrades: Where approved, adopt components with higher reliability—LED lighting, solid-state breakers, or improved LRUs.
Training: Refresh on wiring practices, troubleshooting with multimeters and oscilloscopes, and safe de-energizing procedures.
Standards Compliance: Work to current regulatory requirements and OEM instructions. No undocumented changes.
Quality Parts: Use approved, traceable components and maintain strict configuration control.
Documentation: Log inspections, faults, squawks, rectifications, and test results clearly to support future troubleshooting.
Clean routing, proper strain relief, and good grounds prevent most gremlins.
How to Display Electrical Systems Skills on Your Resume
11. Fuel Systems
The fuel system stores, conditions, measures, and delivers fuel to the engines and APU: tanks, pumps, ejectors, valves, filters, inerting, lines, and controls working in close choreography.
Why It's Important
Fuel flow, purity, and accurate quantity readings safeguard engines and flight planning. Contamination or mismanagement can ground aircraft—or worse.
How to Improve Fuel Systems Skills
Protect reliability with disciplined control of cleanliness and configuration:
Regular Inspection and Maintenance: Check for leaks, smell for fumes, test valves and pumps, and change filters on schedule. Verify bonding and grounds to prevent arcing.
Fuel Quality Control: Sample and test for water, particulates, and microbial growth. Keep sumps clean and records tight.
Component Updates: Replace known-problem parts with improved versions when approved. Track service history and trends.
Monitoring: Use trend data—pressure, flow, temps, and quantity—to catch issues before they cascade.
Training: Refresh on inerting systems, venting behavior, and defuel/refuel procedures and hazards.
Fuel work demands cleanliness, patience, and respect for static and ignition risks.
How to Display Fuel Systems Skills on Your Resume
12. Composite Materials
Composites blend fibers and resins to deliver high strength-to-weight and corrosion resistance. Airframes, control surfaces, panels, and interiors lean on these materials for performance and efficiency.
Why It's Important
They cut weight, boost range, and shrug off corrosion. But repairs demand strict technique—heat, pressure, and ply orientation matter.
How to Improve Composite Materials Skills
Handle, inspect, and repair with precision:
Material Familiarity: Know fiber types, resin systems, core materials, and cure requirements. Understand damage modes like delam, disbond, and impact crush.
Repair Techniques: Master scarf and step repairs, vacuum bagging, heat control, and adhesive bonding per approved data.
Advanced Inspection: Apply NDT—ultrasonic testing, thermography, and shearography—to find hidden damage without teardown.
Composites reward spotless prep and disciplined curing. Deviate, and defects hide in plain sight.
How to Display Composite Materials Skills on Your Resume
