Top 12 Airframe Mechanic Skills to Put on Your Resume
Aviation maintenance moves fast, and hiring managers skim faster. If you’re an airframe mechanic, the right skills—clearly shown, precisely worded—signal safety, judgment, and hands that get aircraft back in the sky without drama. Build your resume around the capabilities below and you’ll read like a pro who delivers.
Airframe Mechanic Skills
- Hydraulics
- Avionics
- Composites
- Sheet Metal
- Non-Destructive Testing (NDT)
- Electrical Systems
- Pneumatics
- Welding
- Aircraft Systems Troubleshooting
- Corrosion Control
- Rigging
- Fuel Systems
1. Hydraulics
Hydraulics uses pressurized fluid to move heavy aircraft components with fine control—landing gear, flaps, slats, brakes, thrust reversers, spoilers. Big force, smooth motion.
Why It's Important
Critical flight and landing systems depend on it. If hydraulic power is inconsistent, slow, or contaminated, safety margins erode fast.
How to Improve Hydraulics Skills
Routine inspections: Chase leaks, chafe points, and worn seals early. Verify pressure, temperature, and accumulator precharge.
Know your schematics: Trace lines, valves, and servos by heart. Understand normal vs. standby circuits and priority valves.
Sharper leak detection: Use ultrasonic or dye techniques, then clean, run, and recheck. Don’t guess—confirm.
Fluids matter: Use the approved spec fluid, keep it clean, and sample on schedule. Contamination control is everything.
Component upgrades: When allowed, install improved pumps, filters, and seals with better reliability records.
Keep learning: New servovalve tech, filtration strategies, and contamination diagnostics change the game. Stay current.
Well-kept hydraulics make an airplane feel healthy. Your work shows up on every rollout and retraction cycle.
How to Display Hydraulics Skills on Your Resume
2. Avionics
Avionics covers the electronics that steer, guide, communicate, and monitor—navigation, comms, flight control interfaces, displays, sensors, recorders. The brain and nerves of the airplane.
Why It's Important
Modern aircraft won’t dispatch without happy avionics. Reliability here reduces write-ups, keeps crews confident, and protects compliance.
How to Improve Avionics Skills
Continuous study: Follow changes in software loads, configurations, and service bulletins. Know the test procedures cold.
Methodical troubleshooting: Validate power and grounds first, then data buses, then LRUs. One variable at a time.
Use proper tools: BITE checks, bus analyzers, calibrated meters. Don’t substitute, don’t shortcut.
Documentation fidelity: Record part numbers, mod status, wiring changes, and configuration control with zero ambiguity.
Safety and standards: Work to approved procedures and regulatory requirements every time.
Small pin, big problem—clean terminations and solid grounding habits prevent ghosts that waste hours.
How to Display Avionics Skills on Your Resume
3. Composites
Composite structures combine fibers and resin to deliver high strength with low weight and superb fatigue resistance. Different behavior than metal, different rules of engagement.
Why It's Important
Lighter airframes save fuel and resist corrosion, but require exact handling, inspection, and curing discipline to keep integrity intact.
How to Improve Composites Skills
Material literacy: Know fiber types, resin systems, core materials, ply orientation, and cure schedules.
Inspection mastery: Apply appropriate NDT methods—ultrasonic, thermography, tap testing—based on structure and defect type.
Repair rigor: Nail surface prep, scarf angles, layup sequence, vacuum integrity, and temperature control. Document cure cycles.
Environmental control: Manage humidity and temperature to avoid voids, porosity, and weak bonds.
Follow manuals: Use the approved structural repair manual instructions—no ad‑libbing with laminates.
Protect yourself: PPE for dust and chemicals; smart handling of uncured materials and cured dust.
Composite work rewards patience. Rush the cure, and the part will tell on you later.
How to Display Composites Skills on Your Resume
4. Sheet Metal
Sheet metal is the skin and skeleton you can see—skins, doublers, ribs, frames, stringers. Precise forming and fastening keep lines tight and loads flowing where they should.
Why It's Important
Airworthiness hinges on fit, edge distance, fastener selection, and corrosion prevention. It’s structure, plain and simple.
How to Improve Sheet Metal Skills
Precision tools: Sharp bits, correct rivet sets, quality brakes and shears. Dull tools make expensive mistakes.
Advanced methods: Understand when laser or waterjet-cut parts are appropriate and how to finish edges properly.
Smart materials: Pick alloys and tempers fit for the loads and environment. Think strength, weight, corrosion behavior.
Quality control: Measure twice—edge distance, hole quality, countersink depth, rivet shop head size.
Corrosion defense: Treat, seal, and protect faying surfaces. Moisture sneaks in where you let it.
Keep learning: New fasteners, coatings, and repair schemes arrive. Stay on top of them.
Clean work looks good and lasts. Sloppy work looks fine—until it doesn’t.
How to Display Sheet Metal Skills on Your Resume
5. Non-Destructive Testing (NDT)
NDT evaluates materials and structures without harming them—ultrasonic, eddy current, magnetic particle, dye penetrant, radiography. Find flaws before they turn into findings.
Why It's Important
It verifies integrity where eyes can’t see. Early detection means cheaper fixes and safer flights.
How to Improve Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Skills
Formal training and certification: Build method-by-method proficiency and keep credentials current.
Modern equipment: Use phased array UT, digital radiography, and calibrated probes for sharper calls and less rework.
Consistent procedures: Follow approved techniques, calibrate often, and control variables—surface prep, couplant, geometry.
Data discipline: Record setups, indications, and dispositions clearly. Traceability matters.
Peer learning: Share case studies, compare calls, and refine technique through workshops and audits.
The best NDT techs are conservative in judgment and ruthless about repeatability.
How to Display Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Skills on Your Resume
6. Electrical Systems
Power generation, distribution, wiring, bonding, sensors, lighting, controls—electrical systems feed and connect almost everything on the aircraft.
Why It's Important
No power, no dispatch. Intermittents and poor grounds cause gremlins that waste hours; good electrical hygiene prevents them.
How to Improve Electrical Systems Skills
Start simple: Verify power, grounds, fuses, and relays before chasing complex faults.
Wiring discipline: Correct routing, support, strain relief, and lacing. Respect bend radii and separation from fluids and heat.
Parts quality: Use approved, airworthy components and confirm PMA or equivalent approvals when applicable.
Upgrades wisely: When authorized, replace aging components with higher‑reliability alternatives to reduce repeat writes.
Keep current: Study revisions to schematics, SBs, and standard practices (including AC 43.13 guidance).
A clean crimp and a clean ground beat guesswork every single time.
How to Display Electrical Systems Skills on Your Resume
7. Pneumatics
Pneumatics uses compressed air or bleed air to do useful work—actuate doors, power de-ice boots, drive certain brakes on some aircraft, support environmental control and engine start systems.
Why It's Important
Leaks, contamination, or weak regulators can cripple systems you need for dispatch and comfort. It’s quieter than hydraulics but just as unforgiving.
How to Improve Pneumatics Skills
Preventive care: Inspect lines, fittings, dryers, and regulators. Clean, lubricate, and replace wear items on schedule.
Leak hunting: Validate with ultrasonic tools or soap testing, then isolate sections methodically.
Right components: Use quality hoses, valves, and seals rated for temperature and pressure ranges you actually see.
Monitor performance: Log pressure, temperature, and cycle times to spot drift before failure.
Design awareness: Minimize pressure drops, avoid sharp bends, and size components to demand.
Training: Stay familiar with both engine bleed systems and standalone compressor setups.
Air is invisible; your process can’t be.
How to Display Pneumatics Skills on Your Resume
8. Welding
Welding joins metal with heat and, sometimes, pressure. In airframes, it’s about approved methods, controlled heat input, and inspection that proves the joint can carry load.
Why It's Important
Structural integrity lives or dies at the weld. Poor prep or technique becomes a crack later.
How to Improve Welding Skills
Technique depth: Practice GTAW/TIG on common aviation alloys and thicknesses. Control distortion and heat-affected zones.
Equipment care: Keep torches, cables, gas flow, and electrodes in spec. Calibration and maintenance count.
Procedural adherence: Use approved procedures and welder qualifications. No undocumented experiments on structure.
Safety first: Ventilation, eye and skin protection, and fume control. Every time.
Quality checks: Visual standards, dye penetrant, and other NDT where required. Record and review.
Pretty beads aren’t enough—sound metallurgy and inspection seal the deal.
How to Display Welding Skills on Your Resume
9. Aircraft Systems Troubleshooting
Diagnosis with discipline. Isolate faults across structures, mechanical systems, electrical paths, and avionics interfaces without chasing your tail.
Why It's Important
Good troubleshooting shrinks downtime and prevents repeat write-ups. It also keeps you from replacing good parts.
How to Improve Aircraft Systems Troubleshooting Skills
Strong fundamentals: Know how each system should behave before deciding why it doesn’t.
One change at a time: Control variables and confirm cause and effect. Document steps and results.
Use the manuals: Follow fault isolation procedures, wiring diagrams, and ATA chapter logic.
Tool competence: Multimeters, pressure gauges, flow meters, BITE tools—use them correctly and safely.
Simulate when possible: Use training aids or simulators to rehearse failure modes and sharpen logic.
Share knowledge: Debrief tough jobs with the team. Patterns emerge, and speed follows.
Assume nothing, verify everything, and the gremlins get bored and leave.
How to Display Aircraft Systems Troubleshooting Skills on Your Resume
10. Corrosion Control
Corrosion control means preventing, detecting, and treating metal deterioration—electrochemical mischief fueled by moisture, salts, and dissimilar metals.
Why It's Important
Left alone, corrosion undermines structure, fasteners, and systems. Costs climb. Safety suffers. It’s relentless—unless you’re more relentless.
How to Improve Corrosion Control Skills
Inspect relentlessly: Focus on traps and joints, lap seams, battery bays, lav and galley areas, bilges, and wheel wells.
Protective finishes: Apply approved primers, sealants, and topcoats. Treat faying surfaces and fastener heads.
CPCs where needed: Use corrosion-preventive compounds in cavities and high-risk zones. Reapply per schedule.
Environmental control: Hangar when possible. Dehumidify storage spaces. Wash away contaminants routinely.
Good drainage: Keep drains open and paths clear. Water that can’t leave will linger and bite.
Material choices: Favor corrosion-resistant alloys and smart design that avoids crevices and galvanic couples where allowed.
Timely maintenance: Clean, lubricate, and replace sacrificial parts before they become structural problems.
Corrosion never sleeps. Neither should your inspection habits.
How to Display Corrosion Control Skills on Your Resume
11. Rigging
Rigging aligns and adjusts control systems and structural linkages—cables, rods, pulleys, bellcranks, control surfaces—so they sit, move, and feel as the manufacturer intended.
Why It's Important
Proper rigging gives pilots predictable control forces and travel. Improper rigging steals performance and can compromise safety.
How to Improve Rigging Skills
Know the specs: Control throws, tensions, travels, neutral points. Memorize the tolerances that matter.
Use the right tools: Tension meters, protractors, rigging fixtures, alignment pins. Calibrated and trusted.
Follow the manual: Sequence matters. Lockouts, neutralizing procedures, and trim settings aren’t optional.
Double-check: Independent inspections catch mis-rig after adjustments. Record every change.
Hands-on practice: Repetition builds feel—cable tension, backlash, and smoothness become obvious.
Stay current: New control surface designs and materials change techniques. Keep up.
Good rigging makes an aircraft fly “right.” Pilots can tell. So can you.
How to Display Rigging Skills on Your Resume
12. Fuel Systems
Fuel systems store, condition, measure, and deliver fuel—tanks, pumps, lines, valves, filters, quantity sensors, vents. Clean fuel in the correct amount, on demand.
Why It's Important
Contamination, leaks, or transfer faults lead to engine issues and dispatch headaches. Crisp fuel management keeps operations smooth.
How to Improve Fuel Systems Skills
Inspect and sample: Drain sumps, check for water and particulates, and verify filter condition. Track trends.
Quality control: Validate fuel grade, storage practices, and handling procedures. Microbial growth needs attention and treatment.
Upgrade thoughtfully: Where allowed, fit improved pumps, lightweight lines, and finer filtration to boost reliability.
Monitor accurately: Calibrate quantity systems and verify transfer and crossfeed function under real conditions.
Train continuously: Know inerting systems, venting behavior, and pressure limits. Respect bonding and grounding during fueling.
Fuel issues are sneaky. Meticulous habits make them rare.
How to Display Fuel Systems Skills on Your Resume
