Flying, testing, maintaining, and protecting aircraft: test pilots, air traffic controllers, crash investigators, mechanics, and the crews who keep airports running.
Top pay: highest pay, longest training
Experimental Test Pilot: Flies brand-new aircraft for the first time and pushes them to their limits to see what they can really do. Typical pay $170k.
Flight Test Engineer: Plans test flights, flies along or monitors from the ground, and analyzes how new aircraft actually perform. Typical pay $125k.
Airline Pilot: Flies passengers and cargo on commercial airliners around the country and world. Typical pay $226k.
Air Traffic Controller: Guides airplanes safely through the sky and on runways by radio and radar. Typical pay $144k.
FAA Aviation Safety Inspector: Inspects airlines, repair shops, and pilots to make sure they follow federal safety rules. Typical pay $120k.
Aerial Firefighting Pilot: Flies air tankers and helicopters that drop water and fire retardant on wildfires. Typical pay $110k.
Flight Simulation Engineer: Builds the full-motion simulators that train pilots and test new aircraft designs. Typical pay $125k.
NASA Airborne Science Pilot: Flies research airplanes like NASA's ER-2 to the edge of space and into hurricanes to collect science data. Typical pay $150k.
Aircraft Mechanic (A&P): Inspects and repairs airplanes and helicopters to keep them safe to fly. Typical pay $79k.
Avionics Technician: Installs and fixes aircraft electronics: radios, navigation, autopilots, and cockpit displays. Typical pay $81k.
Flight Test Instrumentation Technician: Installs the hundreds of sensors and data recorders that turn a test aircraft into a flying laboratory. Typical pay $80k.
Airport Wildlife Biologist: Keeps birds and animals away from runways so they don't collide with airplanes. Typical pay $72k.
Aircraft Dispatcher: Plans each airline flight's route, fuel, and weather strategy and shares legal responsibility for it with the captain. Typical pay $62k.
Flight Instructor: Teaches people to fly airplanes, often while building hours toward an airline career. Typical pay $55k.
Flight Test Data Analyst: Turns thousands of sensor readings from each test flight into clear results for engineers. Typical pay $82k.
Cloud Seeding Pilot: Flies small planes into storm clouds to release particles that boost rain or snow. Typical pay $80k.
Aircraft Records Specialist: Tracks every repair and part history of an airplane, sometimes back to the day it was built, so it can legally fly or be sold. Typical pay $60k.
Starter: fastest way in
Aircraft Line Service Technician: Fuels, tows, and parks airplanes and helps pilots and passengers at airports. Typical pay $40k.
Airline Ramp Agent: Loads bags and cargo, guides planes to the gate, and gets flights turned around fast. Typical pay $38k.
Airshow Aerobatic Pilot: Performs loops, rolls, and stunts in front of crowds at airshows. Typical pay $50k.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.