This book provides clear and complete explanations of what Airframe and Powerplant certificates (licenses) are, who needs them, how you earn them, and what they entitle you to do. It also includes a listing of the over 150 approved Schools across the country that offer Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) training as well as a special section dedicated to Veterans with prior aircraft maintenance experience. This is an aviation career available to almost any high school graduate, male and female, who wants to explore a well-paid and respected career option without the need of a four year college degree or prior aviation experience. The following scenario illustrates what a typical airline A&P technician can expect to do in the course of a day while at the same time defining what "Aircraft Maintenance" is all about. 'After a few years seniority under your belt with a major airline as an A&P you get yourself assigned to the "Terminal" aircraft maintenance crew at a major international airport. Your job is to respond to possible maintenance needs of arriving aircraft. The flight crew, for a soon-to-be departing flight, radios to report a status message that had just appeared on one of the aircraft's video displays during their pre-flight checks. The status message indicates that there is a "glitch" with one of the aircraft's three autopilot computers. Since the aircraft is at your assigned gate you take your laptop loaded with the most current maintenance procedures for that aircraft and walk out to the aircraft and enter the cockpit. You review the status message and extract a discrepancy code from the aircraft's maintenance computer. You know from experience, your maintenance laptop, and from the continuing education you receive from your airline's training centers, that two fully operational auto-pilot computers are all that is needed for safe and airworthy operation and that you could "defer"(or temporarily take out of service) one of them, if necessary, to depart the aircraft. But you also know that if you "defer" one of the three autopilot computers, the aircraft's automatic landing system will be unavailable to the crew. You're informed that the landing visibility at the destination airport could be minimal due to approaching inclement weather and that the flight might have to divert to another airport with better visibility for a manual landing. Your laptop provides a maintenance procedure that you can conduct in the cockpit that might correct the problem, but if it doesn't, will further delay the departure. It's entirely your call. You decide to take the time to follow the maintenance procedure on the laptop that clearly explains the procedure to possibly correct the offending computer. After taking over the co-pilot's seat, you follow the procedure by activating the appropriate sequence of control inputs while observing the results on the aircraft's maintenance computer display. At the end of the procedure, the discrepancy is corrected and all three auto-pilot computers are again happy together. You enter the corrective action you performed into the aircraft's logbook and exit the aircraft. As you walk back to the maintenance office the ground crew begins their "push-back" of the aircraft from the gate and it departs a few minutes late but without all of the problems, and expense, a diversion to an alternate airport would cause 280 passengers and your airline. Read this book and decide for yourself if this is something you could enjoy as much as I have.