This all depends on your drive and determination. I like to think of a well seasoned flight line mechanic as a cardio-thoracic surgeon who gets called in at the patient's darkest hour to come and save the day, and with a lot of hard work and demonstrated success, you can achieve this status in a relatively short time (3-5 years in some cases). It is often left to us to think beyond what is "squawked" and consider the variables at play when the issue occurred. Of course the job is challenging for us as technicians since we often get the tail end (no pun intended) of the story from a flight crew concerning a particular issue with the aircraft. For me personally, I enjoy being the one in my family that everyone calls upon for advice on picking an airline. How many times have you taken a flight and not worried about a thing because you knew how well a certain airline performs their maintenance? Well, as a mechanic, you get to know a little about each airline and fully understand the challenges they face as well as the cross-checking, inspections and mountains of paperwork that go into these tasks. So, for the real answer, I would say that the most rewarding part of any aircraft maintenance job is seeing your work take to the sky and safely deliver passengers or freight to their final destination. Now, I'm sure I may sound a bit biased on that, but just let that sink in for a bit. You get to have hands-on time with airplanes. As a mechanic of 18 years and an instructor for the past 3, I can tell you that our career field certainly has its rewards as well as a few pitfalls.Īs for rewards, of course you get to be the coolest guy in the room at your family Christmas party, but besides that.