Career requirements and duties of Air Force aircraft maintenance officers

Duties of Aircraft Maintenance Personnel

Requirements to Become an Aircraft Maintenance Officer

Specialties in Aircraft Maintenance Career

Aircraft Maintenance (Air Force):

Air Force Reserve utilizes a huge range of aircraft such as bombers, remotely piloted aircraft, cargo carriers, and jet fighters. Since Air Force utilizes this variety of aircrafts with varying individual maintenance requirements, aircraft maintenance plays a crucial role in Air Force. The significant role of aircraft maintenance is evident in the fact that there are thousands of aircraft in the sky every day ("Aircraft Maintenance Officer" par, 1). Generally, aircraft maintenance personnel are mandated with the task of managing entire maintenance operations through the help of automated scheduling, labor utilization systems, and resource allocation ("Aircraft Maintenance" par, 2). These personnel play a vital role in ensuring the safety of the Air Force and integrity of their missions.

Duties of Aircraft Maintenance Personnel:

As part of their duties, aircraft maintenance personnel may be required to fly around the globe to provide combat support, conduct repairs, perform air drops, and supervise training missions. They direct the various aspects of maintenance operations such as aircraft components and aviation support equipments and may be required to coordinate flying and maintenance schedules. Aircraft maintenance officers also conduct inspections of aircrafts and their components, supervise weapons loading processes, implement flight line safety programs, and deal with allocation and requisition of tools and materials. The specific tasks of aircraft maintenance personnel include direct aircraft maintenance operations in deployed locations and garrisons and coordinating major logistics requirements that support maintenance operations. The other specific task is ensuring compliance with technical data, procedures, policy, and safe maintenance practices. When conducting these duties, the personnel's work includes handling fuel systems, propulsion, electro-environmental and avionic systems, and egress.

Requirements to Become an Aircraft Maintenance Officer:

There are several academic requirements and necessary training and skills that an individual must obtain in order to become an aircraft maintenance officer. The main academic requirement in this profession is a Bachelor's Degree though entry into this profession requires completion of high school with courses in electronics, physics, and pneudraulics (Powers, par, 7). In addition to this academic requirement, the individual should be commissioned as an officer in the Air Force Reserve. However, individuals without a prior military service commission are required to successful complete the 9-week Officer Training program, which is offered at Maxwell AFB. The main areas of interest in this profession are weaponry and material, aircraft, maintenance and repair, and computers and computer science. Generally, an individual interested in this career should have knowledge of principles relating to aircraft systems, using technical data, concepts and application of maintenance orders and data reporting, and Air Force supply and shortage reporting processes.

Specialties in Aircraft Maintenance Career: