Top 12 Avionics Technician Skills to Put on Your Resume
In the intricate, ever-shifting world of aviation tech, avionics technicians keep the heartbeat steady. Systems whisper, fail, recover. You catch the signals, make sense of the mess, and return aircraft to a crisp, dependable rhythm. To stand out, your resume should carry skill with teeth—hands-on depth, fast learning, precision under pressure, and a knack for making complex systems behave.
Avionics Technician Skills
1. Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting, in the context of an Avionics Technician, means methodically diagnosing and resolving faults across aircraft electrical and electronic systems—finding root causes, not just symptoms.
Why It's Important
Because the aircraft must fly safely. Pinpointing and correcting faults protects lives, reduces repeat write-ups, and keeps turn times down. Accuracy matters. Documentation too.
How to Improve Troubleshooting Skills
Mix structured thinking with ruthless curiosity and practice.
Know the systems cold: Dive into wiring diagrams, LRU interfaces, data buses, and signal flow. The Avionics Technician Handbook and OEM maintenance manuals build the base.
Use a disciplined process: Isolate, test, verify. Apply methods like 5-Why or fault trees. Prove the failure before you swap parts.
Master your tools: Multimeter, oscilloscope, bus analyzers, pitot-static gear, RF meters. Quick, clean measurements beat guesswork.
Capture history: Recurring faults often hide in write-ups, flight data, or MEL history. Patterns reveal themselves if you look.
Simulate when possible: Bench checks and sims sharpen instincts without the runway clock ticking.
Keep learning: New avionics arrive—stay current on updates, service bulletins, and revised test procedures.
Put it together and your hit rate climbs. Faster fixes. Fewer comebacks.
How to Display Troubleshooting Skills on Your Resume
2. Soldering
Soldering joins components and conductors with controlled heat and alloyed metal to produce reliable, conductive, serviceable connections—on boards, connectors, jumpers, and harness repairs.
Why It's Important
In avionics, bad joints breed gremlins: intermittents, noise, heat. Good soldering locks in reliability, compliance, and signal integrity.
How to Improve Soldering Skills
Precision comes from fundamentals, not flash.
Follow standards: Aim for IPC J-STD-001 and IPC-A-610 workmanship quality. Clean, shiny fillets, correct wetting, zero cold joints.
Use the right tools: Temperature-controlled stations, proper tip geometry, quality solder/flux, ESD-safe setup.
Control heat: Match temperature to alloy and pad mass. Too hot lifts pads; too cool makes brittle joints.
Practice both worlds: Through-hole and SMD. Rework, drag solder, wick and hot-air reflow, connector pin repair.
Handle parts safely: ESD precautions, component preheat where appropriate, minimal dwell time.
Inspect everything: Magnification, continuity checks, tug tests on leads, and if needed, X-ray for dense assemblies.
Keep it clean: Flux residue removal, tip care, no contamination on pads or leads.
Repetition seals the skill. Build speed only after you build consistency.
How to Display Soldering Skills on Your Resume
3. Multimeter
A multimeter measures voltage, current, resistance, and more. For an avionics tech, it’s the day-to-day truth detector.
Why It's Important
It verifies power, grounds, continuity, and sensor behavior. Without solid measurements, troubleshooting drifts.
How to Improve Multimeter Skills
Choose the right meter. Use it precisely.
Go True-RMS: For non-sinusoidal signals and avionics loads, true-RMS ensures accuracy.
Safety and protection: Appropriate CAT rating, fused current inputs, insulated leads, good probe discipline.
Broaden capability: Frequency, duty cycle, capacitance, temperature, microamps for flame sensors or fine circuits. Data logging helps catch intermittent faults.
Technique matters: Four-wire resistance when needed, stable contact, avoid back-probing damage, use adapters instead of forcing pins.
Maintain the tool: Calibrate on schedule, replace worn leads, verify zero and reference points.
Document readings: Baselines speed future troubleshooting and prove return-to-service condition.
How to Display Multimeter Skills on Your Resume
4. Oscilloscope
An oscilloscope visualizes signals—voltage over time—so you can analyze waveforms, timing, noise, and integrity across avionics systems.
Why It's Important
It reveals what multimeters miss: glitches, jitter, ripple, protocol timing, and transient events that break systems under load.
How to Improve Oscilloscope Skills
Clean signals in, clear answers out.
Calibrate and compensate: Keep the scope in calibration; always compensate probes before use.
Pick proper bandwidth: Aim for at least 5x the highest signal frequency of interest. Enough sample rate to catch edges.
Probe like a pro: Use the right attenuation, shortest possible ground, differential probes for floating/high-side signals, and high-impedance active probes for sensitive circuits.
Use math and triggers: FFT for noise, advanced triggers for protocol events, persistence to catch intermittents.
Manage noise: Good grounding, shielding, and careful routing on live aircraft reduce phantom problems.
Stay current: New firmware and features improve decoding and analysis.
How to Display Oscilloscope Skills on Your Resume
5. ARINC 429
ARINC 429 is a unidirectional, two-wire, point-to-point data bus standard used widely in transport-category aircraft. You’ll install, test, and troubleshoot 32-bit words, labels, SSM, SDI, and parity on these links between LRUs.
Why It's Important
It’s the lingua franca for many avionics boxes. Reliable bus communication means clean data, fewer nuisance faults, and predictable integration.
How to Improve ARINC 429 Skills
Protect signal integrity: Use shielded twisted pair, correct termination, solid bonding and grounding, careful routing away from noise sources.
Use proper connectors: Corrosion-resistant contacts, proper crimp and strain relief. Verify pinouts against AMM/WDM.
Test with the right tools: Employ ARINC 429 monitors/simulators to inject, capture, and decode words. Validate label maps and rates.
Manage bus loading: Avoid oversubscription. Verify talker/listener configurations and timing.
Keep software current: LRU firmware revisions can fix encoding/decoding issues and compatibility problems.
Know the standards: Reference ARINC specifications and SAE International guidance when in doubt.
How to Display ARINC 429 Skills on Your Resume
6. ADS-B
ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast) broadcasts aircraft position, velocity, and identity to ATC and nearby aircraft, sharpening surveillance and awareness.
Why It's Important
It enables precise tracking and more efficient airspace use. In the U.S., ADS-B Out has been required since 2020 in most controlled airspace. 1090ES above 18,000 feet; 978 UAT permitted below in specific regions.
How to Improve ADS-B Skills
Install antennas right: Clear sky view, correct polarization, proper bonding, and minimal coax loss. Verify VSWR.
Keep software fresh: Update transceiver firmware and databases to address fixes and mandate changes.
Verify power and grounds: Clean supply within spec, low-noise returns, proper circuit protection.
Test and calibrate: Perform performance checks and squitter validation. Confirm ICAO address, SIL/SDA, and NIC/NAC.
Fight interference: Hunt down RF noise sources on board; ensure proper separation from other transmitters.
Confirm compliance: Match installation to the aircraft’s operating airspace requirements and applicable approvals.
How to Display ADS-B Skills on Your Resume
7. TCAS
TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) scans transponder traffic, evaluates threats, and issues advisories—then resolutions—to maintain safe separation.
Why It's Important
It’s a last line of defense. TCAS II with version 7.1 logic has prevented countless potential conflicts by commanding coordinated vertical maneuvers.
How to Improve TCAS Skills
Update to current standards: Ensure software/firmware matches approved TCAS II v7.1 or newer requirements where mandated.
Maintain antennas and cabling: Check alignment, corrosion, coax integrity, and connectors. Verify diversity operation where installed.
Validate transponder links: Confirm correct mode, power, and reply performance; ensure clean integration with TCAS processor.
Run integration tests: Check interfaces with EFIS, aural warning systems, and FMS for alerting and display consistency.
Train with scenarios: Simulator sessions build speed in diagnosing nuisance RAs, missed intruders, and intermittent targets.
How to Display TCAS Skills on Your Resume
8. EFIS
EFIS (Electronic Flight Instrument System) replaces analog gauges with digital displays—PFDs, MFDs—fed by AHRS and air data, presenting flight, nav, and system info cleanly.
Why It's Important
Centralized, consistent data reduces pilot workload and error. For technicians, modular displays and BITE improve fault isolation and reliability.
How to Improve EFIS Skills
Calibrate and verify: Align AHRS and air data; perform display and comparator checks to keep cross-channel agreement tight.
Stay current on software: Apply service bulletins and updates for display symbology, interface stability, and bug fixes.
Mind the interfaces: Validate ARINC 429/717, discrete I/O, and Ethernet links to sensors, FMS, and autopilot.
Replace aging hardware: Backlights, fans, and control panels wear. Proactive swaps prevent dark screens and flicker.
Train on failure modes: Know what a bad ADC looks like on the PFD, how reversionary modes behave, and how to isolate source vs display faults.
How to Display EFIS Skills on Your Resume
9. FMS
FMS (Flight Management System) blends navigation, performance, and guidance. It plans the route, flies it through the autopilot, and keeps fuel/time honest.
Why It's Important
It drives efficiency and safety—trajectory planning, vertical profiles, RNP/RNAV procedures—so the data must be right and the interfaces clean.
How to Improve FMS Skills
Data integrity first: Load current navigation databases on the 28-day AIRAC cycle. Verify tails, cycles, and checksums.
Update software: Apply approved FMS revisions to fix bugs, improve RNP capability, and refine VNAV/LNAV behavior.
Maintain the hardware: Inspect CDUs, keypads, and data loaders. Check bus connections and power quality to the FMS units.
Validate performance inputs: Correct weights, fuel, and performance tables matter—garbage in, garbage out.
How to Display FMS Skills on Your Resume
10. GPS
GPS (Global Positioning System), part of the broader GNSS family, provides precise position and time for navigation, surveillance, and synchronization.
Why It's Important
It anchors modern nav—en route to approach—with timing that other systems lean on. Lose GPS quality, and a lot gets wobbly.
How to Improve GPS Skills
Use multi-frequency receivers: L1/L2/L5 reception counters ionospheric error and strengthens integrity.
Augment wisely: WAAS/SBAS or GBAS support improves accuracy and approach capability where available.
Install antennas correctly: Unobstructed view, proper grounding and bonding, minimal cable loss, verified VSWR.
Keep firmware updated: Apply constellation, leap-second, and almanac handling improvements.
Plan redundancy: Pair GPS with IRS/INS and consider RAIM or SBAS integrity monitoring for procedural compliance.
How to Display GPS Skills on Your Resume
11. Autopilot
Autopilot (often part of an AFCS) manages aircraft attitude, heading, altitude, and flight path—hand in hand with FMS and EFIS.
Why It's Important
Precision and stability. Reduced workload. The airplane flies the line you ask it to, repeatably.
How to Improve Autopilot Skills
Maintain the sensors: Clean pitot-static systems, calibrated ADCs and gyros/AHRS—bad inputs mean bad guidance.
Rig servos correctly: Check clutches, torque, control cable tensions, breakout forces, and feedback potentiometers.
Apply software and config updates: Autopilot/FMS revisions refine capture logic, gain, and mode transitions.
Run mode and gain checks: Verify lateral/vertical captures, approach modes, and disconnect logic under test conditions.
Document thoroughly: Signoffs with parameters recorded help future diagnostics and airworthiness reviews.
How to Display Autopilot Skills on Your Resume
12. RF Technology
RF Technology covers radios, nav aids, radar, and datalinks. You’re shepherding electromagnetic waves through antennas, cables, filters, and receivers—cleanly and consistently.
Why It's Important
Communication, navigation, surveillance—it all rides on RF health. If the spectrum gets noisy, operations suffer.
How to Improve RF Technology Skills
Antenna excellence: Optimize placement, bonding, and polarization. Measure VSWR/return loss and correct mismatches.
Keep losses low: Use quality coax, correct connectors, proper torque, and moisture barriers. Verify insertion loss.
Calibrate test gear: Spectrum analyzers, NAV/COM testers, and network analyzers must be in tolerance.
Mitigate interference: Hunt EMI with sniffers and analyzers. Route wiring smartly, add filters and shielding where needed.
Design for reliability: Redundancy where required, robust bonding (milliohm-level), and solid grounding practices.
Stay trained: New waveforms and datalinks roll in. Keep pace with procedures, standards, and service bulletins.
How to Display RF Technology Skills on Your Resume
