{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/aircraft-structure-surfaces-rigging-and-systems-assemblers/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Aircraft Structure, Surfaces, Rigging, and Systems Assemblers", "soc_code": "51-2011", "category": "Production", "us_employment": 34020, "median_annual_wage": 65380 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 48, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 15, "embodiment": 17, "liability_shield": 5, "trust_premium": 3, "judgment_accountability": 8 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Fitting a wing panel that arrives out of nominal, hand-shimming to a 0.005-inch gap, back-drilling in a crawl space where no gantry can reach, and running control cable through a fuselage with a fish tape are still manual on most rates — the 15 rather than 18 reflects that panel drilling and fastening on high-rate narrowbody lines has already moved to automated drill-and-fill cells.", "embodiment": "You work inside the structure, not beside it: overhead riveting with a bucking bar, entering wing boxes and tail cones through access holes, kneeling in fuselage barrels, climbing platforms and jigs — but it's a lit, floor-controlled factory bay rather than a flight line in weather, which keeps it at 17 and not 20.", "liability_shield": "No FAA certificate attaches to you — A&P mechanics own the release, DER and inspection stamps carry the sign-off, and your work is captured by QA buy-off, tool-crib torque calibration and traveller stamps, so the 5 instead of 0 reflects employer-issued qualifications on specific processes (sealing, torque, cable swaging, NDT-adjacent) that a hire must retest into.", "trust_premium": "Nothing about the aircraft owner or airline is affected by which assembler bucked the rivet; the part number and traveller identify the work, and you can be moved between stations or shifts with no customer noticing.", "judgment_accountability": "You call whether a hole is oversize enough to warrant an oversize fastener, whether a gap needs a shim or a squawk to liaison engineering, and whether a sealant fillet passes — real calls with FOD and fatigue consequences — but the drawing, the process spec and the shop traveller define the acceptable answers, and anything ambiguous escalates to liaison engineering, which caps it near 8." }, "rationale": "The work is physically real — crawling into wing boxes and fuselage barrels to drill and rivet, shimming panels to tolerance, routing and tensioning control cables, torquing fasteners in tight spaces — and none of that is touched by language AI. The exposure is capital robotics and process engineering: automated fastening cells, drill-and-fill machines, and determinant assembly are already displacing manual riveting on high-rate programs, and the aerospace primes have strong incentives to keep pushing. There is no personal licensure protecting the assembler (unlike A&P mechanics), so the moat is skill and physical access, not law.", "outlook": "Headcount per aircraft keeps falling as primes automate fastening and adopt determinant assembly, but confined-space, systems-install, and rework work keeps a skilled core employed through the 2030s.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Post-MAX/door-plug regulatory tightening that pushes stamp authority down to the assembler: an FAA rule or Boeing/Spirit corrective action plan requiring a named, individually certificated person (A&P or FAA-delegated ODA/designated inspector) to sign each fastener-installation and rigging buyback rather than a supervisor sampling records. The FAA's 2024 production certificate audits and the mandated Boeing Safety and Quality Plan already push traceable individual sign-off on structures work; if that hardens into named-holder certification for structural fastening and control-cable rigging, the assembler's signature becomes personally attributable.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 6 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Nadcap/AS9100 or prime-customer flowdown requiring documented individual operator certification for special processes now common in composite and interference-fit fastening (hole prep, sealant wet-install, cold-work, torque-critical joints), with certification suspendable per person on escape. This exists today for welding and NDT operators; extending the same per-person certification regime to structural fastening would create a credential a robot cell cannot hold.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Formal authority to disposition nonconformances at the point of build — assembler-initiated squawks, gap/shim measurement calls, and stop-build authority written into the quality manual as an individual right rather than routed to Manufacturing Engineering. IAM District 751 and SPEEA have both pressed stop-work and quality-escalation language after the 2024 door plug; if a contract or FAA-accepted quality plan makes the assembler the accountable party for accepting a mismatch condition, the ambiguity call sits with the human.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift as automated drill-and-fill takes the flat, high-access, high-rate panel work: what remains is closeout structure inside wing boxes and pressure bulkheads, one-off rework of robot-drilled holes out of tolerance, oversize/repair fastener installation, control-cable routing and tensioning, and low-rate or defense/derivative programs where the capital case for a fastening cell never closes. The occupation genuinely has these two tiers, and the residual tier is the one capital robotics has repeatedly failed at — Boeing's abandonment of its 777X fuselage automated riveting system (FAUB) and reversion to hand and flex-track work is the documented precedent.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Only rises if program mix moves toward structures that resist automated access — additional composite one-piece barrels with hand-laid closeouts, or heavy defense/rotorcraft and MRO-adjacent buildup where fixturing is nonrecurring. This is a mix effect, not a change in the work itself, and the headroom is small since the score is already near ceiling.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 1 } ], "ceiling_note": "No route to trust_premium: the buyer is an airline or the DoD purchasing a certified airframe, and nobody pays extra to know a human held the rivet gun — assurance is bought through the type/production certificate, not the hand. Note also that liability_shield and judgment_accountability gains would land on a smaller headcount: the same quality regime that makes each signature personally accountable also strengthens the primes' case for automated, self-documenting fastening cells on the work that can be automated. A higher register score here means a more defensible remaining job, not more jobs." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 41130, "wage": 53510 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 43150, "wage": 53340 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 42940, "wage": 54210 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 38460, "wage": 53160 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 33320, "wage": 49480 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 32140, "wage": 58430 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 29810, "wage": 61240 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 32890, "wage": 61680 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 34020, "wage": 65380 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -17.3, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "control-and-valve-installers-and-repairers-except-mechanical-door", "title": "Control and Valve Installers and Repairers, Except Mechanical Door", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 68, "median_wage": 74340, "overlap": 84, "skills_to_close": [] }, { "slug": "industrial-machinery-mechanics", "title": "Industrial Machinery Mechanics", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 67, "median_wage": 64520, "overlap": 82, "skills_to_close": [ "Operation and Control", "Operations Monitoring", "Repairing", "Troubleshooting" ] }, { "slug": "sheet-metal-workers", "title": "Sheet Metal Workers", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 67, "median_wage": 61800, "overlap": 81, "skills_to_close": [ "Mathematics" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }