Aviation Boatswain's Mate – Launching and Recovery Equipment

The civilian side of an ABE career splits along the work itself: hands on hydraulic, steam, and electromechanical equipment under high-tempo conditions. These are the roles where the background reads as a direct match instead of a translation problem.

Direct Civilian Roles

Industrial Machinery Mechanic — keep production equipment running in factories, refineries, paper mills, and shipyards. BLS reports a 2024 median wage of about $62,650 for SOC 49-9041, with strong projected growth tied to manufacturing reshoring and aging plant infrastructure. Catapult and arresting gear maintenance maps cleanly to this work.

Hydraulic / Pneumatic Systems Technician — service high-pressure hydraulic systems in heavy equipment, oilfield service, mass transit, and aerospace ground support. Oilfield service companies (Halliburton, Baker Hughes, SLB) hire heavily for this, with mid-career pay running $70k-$95k depending on rotation and field assignment.

Heavy Mobile Equipment Mechanic — diesel, hydraulics, and electrical work on construction equipment, mining haul trucks, and military vehicle support. BLS SOC 49-3042 median was about $63,540 in 2024.

Electromechanical Technician — work on systems where mechanical, hydraulic, and electrical/control systems intersect (BLS SOC 17-3024.01, ~$67,000 median). EMALS service techs at General Atomics fit here, as do mass-transit maintenance roles at BART, NYC Transit, Amtrak, and SEPTA.

Power Plant Operator — operate and maintain steam, nuclear, and conventional generation equipment. Median pay around $97,000 (BLS 51-8013). Former ABEs with steam-cat experience and any nuclear-adjacent background get strong looks from utilities.

Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisor / Ramp Operations Lead — if you stay closer to flight ops, ramp/cargo supervision pays around $63,940 (BLS 53-1041). Major freight carriers and government contractors hire here.

Shipyard Production Trades — Newport News Shipbuilding (Huntington Ingalls), General Dynamics Electric Boat, and BAE Norfolk hire former ABEs into pipefitting, hydraulic systems, and shipboard test work, often via the SkillBridge program. Hampton Roads and Groton are the two strongest geographic markets.

Industry Context

The defense industrial base is the obvious lane: General Atomics is the OEM for EMALS and AAG and runs field service teams on every active CVN, Newport News builds and refits the carriers, and BAE Systems handles a lot of aviation support equipment lifecycle work. Outside defense, oil & gas service companies are constantly looking for hydraulic systems people, and nuclear utilities (Dominion, Duke, Exelon, Constellation) want anyone with a steam systems and high-tempo maintenance background — your CVN watchbill experience reads exactly like a nuclear plant ops floor.

For ABEs willing to look at adjacent ratings on the civilian side, see how Marine 6541 Aviation Ordnance and Air Force 2A6X1 Aerospace Propulsion veterans handle similar transitions, or look at AT Aviation Electronics Technician if your specialty leaned more electrical.

Build the right resume for these roles. Our FITREP-to-bullet conversion guide covers how to turn evals into industrial maintenance language that hiring managers actually read, and the 2026 high-demand veteran careers guide shows where the hiring is actually happening this year.

Federal jobs are a strong fit for ABEs because the same gear you ran on a CVN is maintained, modified, and overhauled at federal facilities. The biggest pipeline runs through Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst (the lifecycle home for catapults and arresting gear), naval shipyards, and NAVSEA Warfare Centers. Wage Grade (WG) and General Schedule (GS) are both in play.

Wage Grade (WG) Series

WG-5378 Powered Support Systems Mechanic — the cleanest match for an ABE. WG-5378 covers maintenance of aircraft ground support and powered support equipment, which lines up directly with the catapult/AAG side of the rating. Common at Lakehurst, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, NAS Oceana, NAS Lemoore, and NAS North Island.

WG-5306 Air Conditioning Equipment Mechanic — useful for ABEs who worked the cooling and hydraulic crossover systems on EMALS and AAG. The classification covers refrigeration, hydraulic cooling loops, and pressurized fluid systems.

WG-5803 Heavy Mobile Equipment Mechanic — diesel, hydraulics, and electrical work on heavy mobile equipment at federal installations. Strong fit if you spent time on aircraft tow tractors, support equipment, or heavy fueling rigs.

WG-5352 Industrial Equipment Mechanic — broad industrial mechanical work, common at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Puget Sound, Pearl Harbor, and Portsmouth. Catapult production-line work fits here.

WG-5334 Marine Machinery Mechanic — shipboard machinery work at the four public shipyards. Strong fit for ABEs who picked up enough damage control and shipboard systems experience to bridge into hull machinery.

General Schedule (GS) Series

GS-1601 General Facilities and Equipment — facility operations, equipment management, and trade supervision roles. Good fit for ABEs moving into a leadership track on the federal side.

GS-2150 Transportation Operations — covers aviation operations support, airfield management, and related logistics. Useful if your career trended toward deck handler / ABF crossover work.

GS-0856 Electronics Technician — for ABEs who ran the EMALS or AAG control side and want to move into a control-systems track instead of a wrench track.

GS-0802 Engineering Technician — engineering support at Warfare Centers and shipyards, often the path into modeling, testing, and documentation work for catapult/AAG modifications.

Where to Apply

NAES Lakehurst is the single biggest target — that is where catapult and arresting gear engineering, modification, testing, and lifecycle support live. Norfolk, Puget Sound, Portsmouth, and Pearl Harbor naval shipyards hire heavily for WG positions. NAVSEA Warfare Centers (Crane, Dahlgren, Carderock) bring in former sailors for engineering technician roles. Outside DoD, Department of Energy national labs run hydraulic and electromechanical test facilities that take this background, and the FAA hires for airport tech ops.

Federal hiring is its own animal — the resume format is different, the keywords are different, and Veterans' Preference matters more than people think. The BMR federal resume builder handles the GS/WG-specific formatting that USAJobs scoring panels look for, and our home page overview walks through the whole transition flow. If you are heading into the federal lane, the Navy nuke / nuclear power career guide is worth a read because the same federal facilities that hire ABEs also hire nuke graduates, and the resume strategies overlap.

If you are staying in shipyard work, naval-aviation support, or industrial mechanics, the terminology translates directly — your reader already speaks Navy. This section is for ABEs targeting careers outside the maritime and aviation industries, where catapult and arresting gear vocabulary will not register at all.

Translation Table

Before & After Resume Bullets

Project Management:

Before: "Led catapult crew during 9-month deployment, performed 1,200+ cat shots."

After: "Led 12-person high-pressure systems team across 9-month operational period; executed 1,200+ launch cycles with zero safety incidents and 99.4% system availability against tight operational tempo."

Operations Management:

Before: "Stood watch as Catapult Captain on Cat 2."

After: "Served as shift supervisor for one of four parallel high-pressure launch systems, accountable for go/no-go decisions, equipment readiness, and safety of 8-person crew during 12-hour operational windows."

Manufacturing / Maintenance:

Before: "Performed scheduled maintenance on Mk7 Mod3 arresting gear engines per 4790 manuals."

After: "Executed scheduled and corrective maintenance on five high-capacity hydraulic energy-absorption systems per OEM service procedures; logged work orders and parts consumption in shipboard CMMS, supporting reliability metrics across a 4.5-year deployment cycle."

Safety / EHS:

Before: "Conducted FOD walkdowns and JBD ops."

After: "Conducted daily site safety audits and lockout-tagout procedures on jet blast deflector systems before flight ops; identified and mitigated foreign-object hazards across a 4.5-acre operational deck supporting $50M+ in aircraft assets."

Energy Roles:

Before: "Maintained steam catapult systems on CVN-72."

After: "Maintained high-pressure steam delivery systems supporting launch operations aboard a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier; tracked steam pressure, temperature, and consumption against operational tempo to feed downstream reliability analysis."

Translation only works if the resume itself is built right. Our 50 military terms glossary covers the broader patterns, and the BMR military resume builder handles the formatting, keyword targeting, and bullet structure that hiring managers in industrial and energy sectors look for. If you are not sure where to start, the BMR home page is the fastest entry point.