The FAA publishes a table mapping military specialty codes to mechanic ratings. All 203 rows are reproduced here, in full, from AC 65-30B Change 1, Appendix A — the current version, dated 30 October 2024.
Finding yourself in it tells you which rating to pursue and, just as usefully, whether to expect an interview.
Pick your service
Before you scan
The AC says it plainly: aviation maintenance experience does not expire, so the codes in the “previous code” column are still valid. If your code was retired in 1998, find it under the old number and use it.
“Airframe and Powerplant” means both ratings on the code’s face. “Airframe and/or Powerplant” means both are on the table but an inspector decides how much of each you earned. “Airframe orPowerplant” — used on most current-format Navy codes — is the narrowest: the code alone will not carry you to both.
Training time does not count. Purely supervisory or inspection time is at risk. Holding a listed code for six years does not mean six years of creditable experience — work out where you actually stand before you request a single record.
If your code is not listed
It means no automatic mapping exists, so the inspector evaluates your experience on its own merits. Find the closest listed code and be ready to explain the overlap in duties, lean harder on your experience letter, and bring task-level evidence — qualification letters, sign-off records, anything showing what you actually did rather than what your code was called.
The same is true if you never served. There is no civilian version of this table; civilian experience is governed by § 11.5 of the same Advisory Circular, and it is written more openly than the military one.
The guide
How military and civilian mechanics earn an FAA Airframe & Powerplant certificate without going to school. 49 pages, every claim cited to a primary source.
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