Sky Docs

A letter from a reader brings up an interesting question: Why do doctors get paid so much more than aircraft mechanics? The letter writer’s doctor expressed interest in his A&P patient’s occupation and assumed that a great amount of training was required.

A lot of training is required, but had he inquired further, the doctor might have been surprised to learn that his A&P mechanic patient makes probably one-quarter to one-fifth of his salary. Why the big difference?

First, what are the similarities?

Doctors help maintain complex machines with a combination of preventive maintenance (checkups) and non-routine maintenance (drugs, surgery, rehabilitation therapy, and occasional laying-on of hands). So do A&P mechanics.

Doctors endure years of training and apprenticeship (internship, residency, on-the-job training). So do A&P mechanics.

Doctors bear a great responsibility for human life. So do A&P mechanics.

Doctors shoulder a huge liability burden. So do A&P mechanics.

Doctors are in high demand. So are A&P mechanics (most of the time).

Without modern medicine, many people would live shorter, disease-ridden lives, and the population and economy would be much smaller. Without maintenance, many more people would die in aircraft accidents and aviation would be a mere shadow of the current, globe-girdling giant that it is.

The big difference is that doctors work on human beings and mechanics on aircraft. The most complex aircraft is orders of magnitude simpler than the human body, and doctors’ training reflects that difference in complexity.

There is more behind the great difference in salaries.

It takes years of expensive schooling to become a licensed doctor in the U.S. Joining the ranks of A&P mechanics takes as little as one year of accelerated schooling, but more realistically 18 months to two years. Let’s compare hours of schooling, which gives a better point of comparison.

Bill O’Brien, FAA national resource specialist for general aviation and sport aviation and a popular speaker at maintenance seminars, looked into the time spent studying by college students and A&P students.

A student graduating from a four-year college spends about 1,680 hours in class. Homework time is extra. A mechanic must log an FAA-mandated minimum of 1,900 hours, plus homework. Hour-for-hour, one could make a case that an A&P certificate is roughly equivalent to a four-year college degree. An A&P certificate is not hour-for-hour equivalent to the hours put in by an aspiring doctor, but the A&P graduate certainly does put in a significant amount of time to obtain the FAA certificate.

No matter how much education mechanics have, the perception persists that they are trained to a lesser degree than a college student and are common laborers.

Indeed, at a recent IA seminar, O’Brien was asked the age-old question: "Why are we categorized as unskilled labor by the government?"

O’Brien probably gets this question everywhere he speaks, and he has a ready answer. He explained that, since 1988, the U.S. Labor Department no longer uses such categories.

It’s about time, in my opinion, that we stop passing this bit of lore around. This question always makes me wonder: do mechanics talk about nothing else? Do we lack confidence in our skills? Do we wish we had gone to law school or medical school?

One more point. As much schooling and training as doctors obtain, they are not scientists. They are "skilled craftsmen" according to author Wayne Biddle in his excellent book "A Field Guide to Germs" (Anchor Books, 2002). "The practice of medicine is not a science," Biddle writes, "but the application of many branches of science to the way people live."

Aircraft maintenance is the application of many branches of science to the preservation of human lives in aerial vehicles. Mechanics are not as copiously schooled as doctors, but what they do is certainly important and deserving of respect. Mechanics are just as much skilled craftsmen as are doctors. Maintenance is extraordinarily critical, responsible for the safety of millions of lives, and worth paying mechanics well so that they will have enjoyable, satisfying, and remunerative careers.