AD vs FT
Aviation Machinist's Mate (USN) vs Fire Control Technician (USN)
Same ocean, same Navy chow, same creative interpretation of "sleep schedule" — wildly different definitions of a bad day.
The numbers tell a story the career counselor won't. AD (Aviation Machinist's Mate) vs FT (Fire Control Technician). Full metrics loading as reviews come in. The breakdown below shows where each one wins, loses, and lands in the "it depends" zone. The transition assistance workshop will hit different for these two.
After the Uniform
The part the recruiter skips: what each job actually translates to once you're a civilian — and what it pays.
Salary data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program. A guide, not a guarantee.
Recruiter vs. Reality
The pitch versus what people who actually did the job report back.
“You'll maintain jet engines on Navy and Marine Corps aircraft — F404s in the F/A-18, F135s in the F-35, T56 turboprops in the E-2C. The technical depth of naval aviation powerplant maintenance is significant, and the FAA Powerplant certificate is directly achievable through military engine experience. Major airlines and MRO facilities are in a persistent competition for A&P-certified technicians with military jet engine experience, and they recruit at Navy transition events specifically for this reason. The pay for an A&P powerplant specialist at a major airline MRO is real money. The Navy is paying for the training.”
You will become intimately familiar with the GE F414 and the Pratt & Whitney F100 in ways the engineers who designed them never intended, primarily because you are maintaining them with fewer people and less sleep. Your workspace is either a flight deck on a CVN in 40-knot winds or a hangar bay where the temperature is 20 degrees hotter than outside due to reasons nobody can explain. A jet engine inspection that the manual says takes four hours will take twelve because three of the required tools are on another aircraft, one is missing entirely, and the work order has a typo. You will develop a second sense for the difference between a normal engine noise and an 'oh no' engine noise. Civilian aviation maintenance is absolutely within reach — A&P certification pathway is legitimate — but the Navy will wring every possible flight hour out of you first. The moment you marshal a jet that you fixed and watch it come off the waist cat is the closest thing to pride the aviation world offers.
The Real Life
Same dimensions, side by side. AD on the left, FT on the right.
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Operating and maintaining the submarine's fire control systems — the integrated weapons targeting and launch system that connects sonar data, tactical inputs, and torpedo tube operations. On a fast-attack: standing fire control watches in the control room, maintaining the MK 117 (or current generation) fire control system, torpedo tube machinery, and weapons handling equipment. You cross-train closely with STSs (sonar) because fire control and sonar are the tactical brain of the boat. Off-deployment you maintain the fire control system at pierside, run equipment checks, and support weapons loading evolutions.
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The pipeline runs through Naval Submarine School in Groton (CT) and is one of the longer enlisted training sequences in the Navy — plan on 12-18 months total including Basic Enlisted Submarine School (BESS), the FT A School covering fire control systems, and the weapons technician training that covers torpedo systems and tube machinery. Pull the current course of instruction from NETC before quoting a specific month count; the pipeline length moves with platform and system updates.
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Low to moderate. Fire control work is console- and equipment-based, not physically strenuous. The submarine lifestyle is the challenge: port-and-starboard watch rotations (6 on, 6 off), confined berthing, and sustained mental alertness required for weapons systems maintenance and torpedo tube operations. Comfort in confined spaces is not optional.
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FT chose submarines, which means the submarine community chose you — and that cuts both ways. You are joining one of the most technically elite enlisted communities in the military, the pay is excellent, and the work on weapons systems used in real-world operations is about as consequential as enlisted work gets. What the recruiter will gloss over: submarine life is all-consuming in a way that other naval service is not. When you are deployed you are genuinely unreachable for months. The boat's schedule is the schedule. Port-and-starboard watches eat your sleep, and some sailors discover mid-patrol that the confined-space reality is harder than they anticipated. Divorce rates in the submarine community are a documented problem. The civilian path is strong — defense contractors want people with classified fire control and weapons systems experience — but the first 4-6 years require surrendering a version of normal life that some people can afford and some cannot. If you can handle the lifestyle, FT is an extraordinary career with a premium pay package and a post-Navy market that will find you before you finish your terminal leave.
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