The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) maintenance committee is proactively addressing the shortage of aviation maintenance technicians by reaching out to those with military experience in the field. The association cites estimates of 22,000 service members per year completing their military service with training in some form of aviation maintenance.
Obviously these people get out of the service with enough retirement pay and medical, and so many other financial benefits; why would they care about “NBAA career guidance” when they are already pretty much set for life?
One reason that so few military maintenance folks don’t pursue the A&P is that mechanics aren’t given credit like a pilot. A military pilot comes out and all of his or her flight hours, ratings, experience are directly applicable to a civilian license. But a military technician basically starts at zero on the path to an A&P. Almost none of the hours/years count for anything. The only leg up they have over a “man off the street” at the A&P school is possibly the GI bill to help pay the way. Yes, of course, their experience will make them star pupils in class, but it won’t let them skip any of the years of classwork, or any of the expense.
When my father retired after 27 years (and 3 wars, South Pacific, Korea, Vietnam) he received around 60% of his military pay for retirement. He had to get a college education after that and work into his 70s. Military pay is a lot higher now than it was in the 60s but I wouldn’t say “set for life”.
As to military pilots, at the end of UPT (flight training), we were advised that we could stay on base another day and the FAA would come and administer the Military Competency test. Some people did not take advantage of that offer. I left with a Commercial, Instrument, Multi-Engine (limited to center-line thrust) pilot license.
Accrued flight time in training was meaningless beyond meeting the requirements of a Commercial certificate (after accruing another 100-150 hours in service). The applicant still had to take the written test and check out with an FBO and getting recommended for a flight test, all of which he had to pay for.
After flying single-engine with 10 hours in command, I showed my military flight records to the FSDO and they issued me a Single Engine Land rating. Years later, after 10 hours in command of a T-39 (Sabreliner 40), they removed my center-line restriction. I took the ATP written (free at Tallahassee FSDO) and the checkride with a FSDO Examiner (again FREE) and received my ATP.
Much later, a friend bemoaned that he left UPT without taking the written test and he had to take all of the written tests and check rides (at great expense, since the FAA doesn’t seem to want to interact with the public any more).
Oh, yeah, I got my Commercial Glider check ride for free, as well, with a FSDO examiner. I never paid for any rating until my Sport Pilot Gyroplane rating, since the FAA can’t do that, and probably won’t, any way.
Yea, the “set for life” was a bit of intentional hyperbole.
The people that I knew who retired only worked what I would call their fun jobs afterwards.
Sweating away in un-airconditioned hangars and getting sliced by safety wire was not the “fun jobs” than they wanted to do…
The target audience for this outreach program is not the retired service member. It is the 4, 6, 8 , 10 year veteran. At the time of retirement, a veteran has been in a supervisory role for years and has not turned a wrench for quite some time. He/She also has little interest in continuing an aviation maintenance career due to various reasons that include burn out, the learning curve, and also a false notion that the civil environment will be as intense as the military flightline was.