Note
What Goes in an A and P Mechanic Tool Kit, and What Does Not
A first kit built from what actually gets asked for, and an argument against the piece count that every kit on the market is sold on.
Every tool kit aimed at aviation students is sold on its piece count, and piece count is close to useless as a measure. A 263 piece kit that is missing the one countersink cage the job needs is a 262 piece kit and a walk back to the crib.
What follows is a first kit built from what a first year actually gets asked for.
The case for buying less
Three reasons, and they are all practical rather than financial.
A tool you cannot yet use is a tool you will lose before you can. A larger kit takes longer to check, so it gets checked less carefully, which is the habit you least want to build in your first year. And a kit padded with cheap versions of good tools teaches you nothing about which tools are worth owning.
Buy the short list well. Add the specialist items when a specific job demands one, because then you will know which one.
What goes in
Turning things
- Combination spanners in the sizes your workshop airframes actually use. Check before buying: American general aviation is imperial, most Airbus work is metric, and buying both is how a first kit doubles in price for no benefit.
- A 1/4 inch and a 3/8 inch socket set, with deep sockets. Deep sockets are not a luxury, aircraft fasteners are frequently recessed.
- Screwdrivers, and specifically the cross point sizes aviation fasteners use. A driver that nearly fits is how a screw head gets destroyed on an aircraft that is not yours.
- A ratcheting screwdriver with bits, for the hundred panel fasteners nobody warns you about.
Holding and cutting
- Combination pliers, long nose, and diagonal cutters.
- Safety wire pliers. Reversible, 9 inch. You will use them in the first week and they are the tool most often borrowed and not returned, so mark yours.
- Aviation snips, all three: left, right and straight. One of each, because cutting a curve the wrong way with the wrong pair is how a panel becomes scrap.
Measuring and checking
- A steel rule and a tape.
- An inspection mirror and magnifier set. Most findings are found with a mirror and a light before anything expensive comes out.
- A rivet gauge, 19 EUR, if the syllabus includes structures.
- A caliper that reads metric and imperial, because aircraft drawings arrive in both and often on the same page.
Sheet metal basics, if year one includes structures
A hand drill and cobalt bits in #40, #30 and #21. Cleco pliers and 50 clecos. Fluting pliers and a hand seamer. That is enough to do a simple repair properly.
What stays out of a first kit
Torque wrenches, mostly. One low range wrench eventually, and only when you will be trusted to use it unsupervised. A torque wrench needs calibration control, and a student kit is not a controlled equipment register. See torque wrench selection.
Test equipment. A multimeter used on aircraft is controlled and calibrated equipment. That is the school's, with a certificate, not yours.
Specialist type tooling. By definition specific to types you have not met.
A rivet gun, at first. Unpopular, but a hand squeezer will set more rivets than a gun on the work a student is given, and the school will have guns. Buy your own when you know which size. See choosing a rivet gun.
Mark everything, from the first day
Put your name or number on every tool you own, permanently. Not tape, not marker: those come off in a month.
Two reasons. A tool found in a workshop comes back to you. And a tool found in an aircraft is traced to somebody, and you want to be the person whose tools are accounted for rather than the person nobody can rule out.
This is also the habit that employers notice. A technician who arrives with an identified, shadowed kit has already understood tool control, and every Part-145 organisation has a chapter about it. Etched marking is the permanent version, and schools can run a whole intake's numbering range in one batch. See training schools.
What to buy it as
A curated A and P kit is cheaper than the same tools bought individually and comes in a case that fits them. Ours is 142 pieces at 1180 EUR ex VAT, which is deliberately smaller than the market average, and it can be supplied in cut foam with tool identification etched from the start.