Top 12 Pilot Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the competitive world of aviation, standing out as a pilot takes more than hours in the logbook. Your resume needs a crisp spread of technical, operational, and human skills that reveal judgment, adaptability, and calm control when the sky turns unruly.

Pilot Skills

1. Instrument Landing System (ILS)
2. Flight Management System (FMS)
3. Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B)
4. Multi-Crew Coordination (MCC)
5. Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS)
6. High-Altitude Long Endurance (HALE)
7. Synthetic Vision System (SVS)
8. Global Positioning System (GPS)
9. Crew Resource Management (CRM)
10. Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) Awareness
11. Electronic Flight Bag (EFB)
12. Weather Radar Operation

1. Instrument Landing System (ILS)

The Instrument Landing System (ILS) is a precision approach aid that uses radio beams to provide lateral and vertical guidance to the runway, enabling accurate approaches when visibility is thin or ceilings sag low.

Why It's Important

ILS delivers stable, repeatable guidance in poor visibility, shrinking workload at the most critical moments and protecting approach path integrity.

How to Improve Instrument Landing System (ILS) Skills

Build sharper ILS proficiency with a blend of knowledge, repetition, and discipline:

1. Know the system: Localizer, glideslope, markers/DMEs, back course traps, false glideslope risks—have them wired.
2. Brief with intention: Frequencies, inbound course, FAF, DA/MDA, missed approach, back-up nav, failure cues.
3. Fly the needles cleanly: Small corrections, trim early, manage power smoothly, chase trends not spikes.
4. Use simulators: Train crosswinds, tailwinds, step-down fixes, circle-to-land, and abnormal indications.
5. Cross-check relentlessly: Compare raw data, FMS, and charted procedures; guard against mode confusion.
6. Practice stabilized criteria: Gate checks at 1,000/500 feet, call-outs, and go-around discipline when unstable.

Consistency and crisp call-outs make the approach feel unremarkable—which is the point.

How to Display Instrument Landing System (ILS) Skills on Your Resume

2. Flight Management System (FMS)

The Flight Management System (FMS) centralizes route planning, performance calculations, navigation guidance, and autopilot coupling. It’s the brain that turns a plan into a flown path.

Why It's Important

An effective FMS reduces workload, sharpens lateral/vertical accuracy, and helps execute performance-based navigation with fewer errors.

How to Improve Flight Management System (FMS) Skills

Improve your mastery as a pilot—focus on use, not redesign:

1. Type-specific depth: Learn your platform’s nuances (Airbus MCDU, Boeing CDU, Collins Pro Line, Garmin). Know page flows, scratchpad messages, and failure modes.
2. Data entry discipline: Verify every waypoint, SID/STAR, transition, altitude constraint, and cost index. Two sets of eyes; no assumptions.
3. Database awareness: Confirm cycle currency, altimeter setting sources, and temperature/pressure corrections for baro-VNAV.
4. Mode management: Understand LNAV/VNAV engagement logic, path intercept behavior, and when to revert to basic modes.
5. What-if practice: Route changes, runway swaps, re-clearances, holding, directs, discontinuities—drill until fluid.
6. Performance pages: Nail takeoff/landing data, anti-ice impacts, contaminated runway factors, and go-around profiles.
7. Sim repetition: Scenario-based sessions build quick fingers and slower heart rates when the plan shifts midflight.

How to Display Flight Management System (FMS) Skills on Your Resume

3. Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B)

ADS-B determines aircraft position via satellite navigation and broadcasts it to ATC and nearby aircraft. In return, pilots gain traffic and weather services where available, boosting situational awareness.

Why It's Important

Better traffic awareness, tighter surveillance, and cleaner separation—especially in busy or complex airspace.

How to Improve Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) Skills

1. Know the pieces: ADS-B Out (mandated in much U.S. controlled airspace since 2020) and ADS-B In (traffic and weather where provided). Understand TIS-B and FIS-B differences.
2. Verify configuration: ICAO address, emitter category, GPS source integrity, antenna health, and correct installation.
3. Monitor performance: Review system reports after maintenance or upgrades and address any integrity/accuracy flags.
4. Keep software current: Avionics updates tighten compliance and fix quirks before they bite.
5. Use it wisely: Treat traffic displays as an aid, not a shield. Eyes outside still matter. Always prioritize TCAS RAs over other cues.

How to Display Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) Skills on Your Resume

4. Multi-Crew Coordination (MCC)

Multi-Crew Coordination blends communication, task sharing, leadership, and decision-making so two pilots operate like one mind with four hands.

Why It's Important

It slashes errors, buffers workload spikes, and ensures the right person does the right task at the right time—safely.

How to Improve Multi-Crew Coordination (MCC) Skills

1. Speak cleanly: Standard phraseology, closed-loop communication, succinct briefings, assertive call-outs.
2. Use SOPs like rails: Clear PF/PM roles, sterile cockpit discipline, and checklist rigor.
3. Lead and follow: Adaptive leadership when the tempo rises; supportive followership that anticipates needs without stepping on toes.
4. Plan the dance: Before each leg, align on threats, alternates, automation use, and abort/go-around triggers.
5. Simulate friction: Practice conflicts, interruptions, and ambiguous failures; then debrief openly.
6. Debrief every time: What worked, what didn’t, what’s changing next leg—keep it brief and honest.

How to Display Multi-Crew Coordination (MCC) Skills on Your Resume

5. Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS)

TCAS monitors nearby transponder-equipped aircraft and issues traffic advisories and, when needed, resolution advisories to climb or descend and avoid a collision.

Why It's Important

It’s the last barrier in the sky. When it speaks, you listen—and you act.

How to Improve Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) Skills

1. Commit the rule: Comply immediately with RAs. TCAS guidance takes precedence over ATC instructions.
2. Know version behavior: TCAS II v7.1 includes “Adjust Vertical Speed” and RA reversals—recognize the cues.
3. Practice scenarios: High closure rates, multiple intruders, altitude bust traps, and nuisance alerts. Use sim time well.
4. Integrate with procedures: Brief RA responsibilities, PM call-outs, and when to declare “unable” to ATC during compliance.
5. Maintain systems: Keep transponders and associated avionics healthy; verify proper alt reporting and configuration.

How to Display Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) Skills on Your Resume

6. High-Altitude Long Endurance (HALE)

High-Altitude Long Endurance typically refers to unmanned aircraft operating above roughly 60,000 feet for many hours or days, enabling persistent surveillance or communications relay. For pilots, it’s most relevant to UAS operations and high-altitude mission planning.

Why It's Important

Extended reach without frequent recovery cycles means wide coverage, long dwell, and fewer gaps in mission data.

How to Improve High-Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) Skills

1. Mission planning: Model winds aloft, temperature profiles, and solar cycles (for solar platforms) to stretch endurance.
2. Energy management: Optimize power budgets, payload draw, and battery margins; protect the reserve.
3. Link reliability: Harden command-and-control links and establish loss-of-link procedures with airtight triggers.
4. Contingency paths: Pre-brief diversion profiles, safe loiter altitudes, and escape routes in rare system degradations.
5. Human performance: For manned ops, manage fatigue, hydration, and rest cycles; for unmanned, manage shift handovers with exacting checklists.

How to Display High-Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) Skills on Your Resume

7. Synthetic Vision System (SVS)

Synthetic Vision System renders a 3D, computer-generated view of terrain, obstacles, and runways using onboard databases and sensors, giving a clear picture when the outside world goes gray.

Why It's Important

SVS elevates situational awareness in low visibility, reducing disorientation risks and tightening approach alignment.

How to Improve Synthetic Vision System (SVS) Skills

1. Keep data current: Terrain, obstacle, and nav databases must be on-cycle and verified.
2. Fuse wisely: Understand how your system blends GPS, inertial data, and other sensors—and its limits.
3. Display discipline: Configure symbology, declutter appropriately, and avoid over-reliance; cross-check with raw data.
4. Train in low vis: Simulate partial panel, unusual attitudes, and abnormal approaches using SVS cues.
5. Test the edges: Practice runway incursion recognition, terrain menace scenarios, and missed approach transitions with SVS in the loop.

How to Display Synthetic Vision System (SVS) Skills on Your Resume

8. Global Positioning System (GPS)

GPS provides precise position and time from space-based signals. In the cockpit, it underpins RNAV procedures, performance-based navigation, and often your moving map lifeline.

Why It's Important

It sharpens navigation, trims fuel burn with efficient routing, and supports approaches where ground navaids are sparse.

How to Improve Global Positioning System (GPS) Skills

1. Augment for integrity: Use SBAS (e.g., WAAS/EGNOS/MSAS) where available; understand RAIM checks and LPV/LP procedures.
2. Adopt multi-constellation: Receivers that use GPS plus Galileo, GLONASS, and BeiDou bolster availability and accuracy.
3. Understand GBAS: Ground-Based Augmentation System (formerly LAAS) enables precision guidance at equipped airports.
4. Plan alternates: Know contingency nav (VOR/DME, DME-DME, inertial) in case of jamming, spoofing, or outages.
5. Mind the database: Keep nav data current and verify approach minima, altimeter sources, and cold temperature corrections.

How to Display Global Positioning System (GPS) Skills on Your Resume

9. Crew Resource Management (CRM)

Crew Resource Management blends communication, leadership, decision-making, and teamwork to reduce human error and sharpen safety margins.

Why It's Important

Good CRM catches slips before they snowball and keeps crews resilient when the unexpected stirs.

How to Improve Crew Resource Management (CRM) Skills

• Refine communications: Clear intent statements, readbacks, and respectful challenge when something feels off.
• Structured decisions: Use models like DECIDE—Detect, Estimate, Choose, Identify, Do, Evaluate—to think under pressure.
• Calibrate leadership: Shift styles with the situation; invite input while owning the final call.
• Team rehearsal: Use sims and line-oriented flight training to stress-test roles and coordination.
• Continuous learning: Regular refreshers, threat and error management reviews, and honest self-assessment.

How to Display Crew Resource Management (CRM) Skills on Your Resume

10. Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) Awareness

CFIT awareness means recognizing and preventing scenarios where a fully functioning aircraft is flown into terrain, water, or obstacles due to lapses in situational awareness.

Why It's Important

CFIT remains a killer when attention narrows. Awareness reopens the scan and restores margins.

How to Improve Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) Awareness Skills

1. Plan terrain-smart: Review MEAs, MSAs, MORAs, OROCA, and obstacle sectors; brief escape routes and minimum safe altitudes.
2. Leverage TAWS/EGPWS: Understand alerts, inhibit logic, limitations, and appropriate responses.
3. Stable by the gate: Enforce stabilized approach criteria; if not met, go around without hesitation.
4. Mind the altimeters: Correct altimeter settings, cold temperature corrections, and baro-VNAV nuances.
5. Weather vigilance: Night, haze, and precipitation erode depth cues—add distance, not bravado.

How to Display Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) Awareness Skills on Your Resume

11. Electronic Flight Bag (EFB)

An Electronic Flight Bag replaces stacks of paper with secure digital charts, manuals, performance tools, and briefings—everything tidy, searchable, and current.

Why It's Important

It speeds up planning, reduces errors, and lightens the cockpit admin load so you can fly the airplane.

How to Improve Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) Skills

1. Build a layout that works: Organize apps, favorites, and quick-access folders by phase of flight.
2. Stay current: Keep charts, databases, company manuals, and app versions on-cycle; verify before duty.
3. Use real-time inputs: Integrate NOTAMs, weather, and traffic data where approved; verify sources before action.
4. Annotate and brief: Mark hotspots, special procedures, and threats; share summaries with your crew.
5. Power and policy: Manage batteries, backups, mounts, and connectivity in line with company and regulatory guidance.

How to Display Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) Skills on Your Resume

12. Weather Radar Operation

Onboard weather radar detects precipitation and its structure so pilots can thread around convective buildups and avoid the worst of the ride.

Why It's Important

Strategic weather avoidance preserves safety, comfort, and schedules. Guesswork doesn’t cut it near towering cells.

How to Improve Weather Radar Operation Skills

1. Tilt and gain mastery: Set tilt to scan the right slice; adjust gain to avoid masking weak returns or overpainting clutter.
2. Interpretation, not just color: Recognize attenuation, shadowing, hail spikes, and ground clutter; avoid the dark holes behind heavy cells.
3. Scan technique: Sweep multiple ranges and tilts; build a 3D mental picture of cells and anvils.
4. Blend sources: Cross-check onboard radar with other weather products and pilot reports; never rely on one feed.
5. Plan lateral space: Give mature convection wide berth—20+ NM upwind, more near anvils and tops.

How to Display Weather Radar Operation Skills on Your Resume