More of this Feature • Air Force Job Descriptions • USMC Job Descriptions

Join the Discussion Talk About Military Jobs

Related Resources • Joining the Military • Enlisted Jobs

Elsewhere on the Web • Joining the Air Force • Joining the Army • Joining the Navy • Joining the Marines • Air Force OTS • Air Force ROTC • Air Force Academy

AFSC 21A4, Staff
AFSC 21A3, Qualified
AFSC 21A1, Entry

Specialty Summary. Leads, trains, and equips personnel supporting aerospace equipment sustainment and operations. Manages maintenance and modification of aircraft and associated equipment. Administers aircraft maintenance programs and resources. Directs aircraft maintenance production, staff activity, and related materiel programs. Assesses unit capability and advises senior leadership. Related DoD Occupational Groups: 4D.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Directs aircraft maintenance operations activities in garrison and deployed locations. Maintains workforce discipline and responds to personnel issues while balancing workforce availability and skill levels with operational requirements. Works with functional managers to develop, formulate, and manage fiscal resources. Instills maintenance discipline, security awareness and force protection concepts. Ensures accuracy of documentation in aircraft forms and automated systems. Ensures adherence to technical data, policy, procedures, and safe maintenance practices.

Develops, coordinates, and executes flying and maintenance schedules. Manages aircraft configuration; daily aircraft servicing, weapons loading, launch, recovery, and repair; periodic aircraft maintenance inspections; and flightline safety and foreign object damage (FOD) prevention and dropped object programs. Manages overall aircraft fleet health and ensures aircraft availability to execute mission requirements. Analyzes aircraft maintenance indicators to identify trends and initiates corrective actions.

Directs maintenance activities that may include aircraft propulsion, pneudraulics, egress, fuel systems, electro-environmental, and avionic systems. Also may include management of aerospace ground equipment, structural repair, corrosion control, survival equipment, machine, welding, inspection, aero-repair, non-destructive inspection, and off-equipment munitions and armament suspension equipment.

Manages quality assurance, maintenance training, budget and resource management, analysis, facilities, shared resources to include end-of-runway and weapons load training. Manages plans and programs, modifications, and modernizations requirements.

Formulates maintenance plans and policies to meet unit tasking. Assesses unit maintenance capability in support of combat related operational plans and provides inputs for capability assessments for each plan. Defines aircraft maintenance procedures and requirements in response to emergency or contingency situations .

Coordinates key core logistics requirements supporting aircraft maintenance operations. Establishes support requirements for supply requisition, repair cycle, delivery, combat support, ground and aerial port transportation, base support plans, and munitions requirements.

Directs and manages depot maintenance activities to encompass wholesale logistics life cycle sustainment support. Coordinates production schedules to include induction and selling systems. Manages combat logistics support squadrons (CLSS) workloads and personnel. Defines technical problems and economic factors related to research and development, and system operational data to evaluate programs, assess trends, and identify improvements and deficiencies. Manages weapons system programs, the bargaining unit workforce, funding of depot maintenance workloads, and transportation distribution systems. Manages logistics tests and evaluation on new acquisition programs and aircraft modifications.

Specialty Qualifications:

Knowledge. Knowledge is mandatory of: Maintenance and personnel management procedures, and organizational and mission requirements; capabilities, limitations, and basic operating principles of aircraft systems and components; theory of flight and airframe construction; quality assurance; supply, transportation, logistics plans, contracting, flying operations, munitions units, civil engineering, and other unit operations related to aircraft maintenance units .

Education. For entry into this AFSC, an undergraduate academic degree in management, engineering, industrial management, business management, logistics management, or physical sciences is desirable .

Training. For award of the 21A3, completion of an AETC in-residence Aircraft Maintenance Officer Course (AMOC) is mandatory.

Experience. For award of AFSC 21A3, a minimum of 24 months of experience managing aircraft maintenance activities and completion of CFETP requirements is mandatory.

Other. None.

Specialty Shredouts:

None

Return to Air Force Jobs Menu

Above Information Derived from AFMAN 36-2105