I wonder what is meant by “CAMO” here, seeing all these crazy fees like 1000, 1500 euros etc. I use a CAMO organisation but only for their annual inspection effort which is just about 350 Euros. My mechanic does the job 100 hour maintenance (I do the 50 hours myself and partially help out with 100 hours) and an inspector from a CAMO organisation signs off the annual. Are all above 1000+ Euros in for the inspection work or are you all actually using CAMO to track your Airworthiness Directives, Service Bulletins, Service instructions and recurring maintenance like 500 hour mag inspections etc? If you are paying 1000+ for all these, you guys better start getting your hands a little dirty on your own aircraft and do your own tracking. It is amazing how much you’d learn about your aircraft by doing that.
I was paying £ 200 or less for CAMO work which as A_and_C mentions was a normal function of the Engineer – back in the days when the Engineer was trusted.
That‘s indeed how it seems.
EASA have introduced a system that is based on the airline world and is without doubt overkill for the light aircraft world bit even before the CAMO arrived as a engineering licence holder I had to check the same stuff as a CAMO checks.
This work did not go unpaid but it was all rolled up into the cost of the maintenance check and not obvious to the casual observer, however as it was done by the guy who released the aircraft it tended to be carried out in a very practical way.
Looking at the costs quoted above it is clear that some are doing very well out of this but EASA has pushed up the cost of doing business by creating paperwork for all and some are taking more advantage than others.
I find these figures eye-watering. 1k for maintenance documentation for what is basically a lawn mower?
Some types have a lot more lifed parts or ADs than others, but none of us are flying the Space Shuttle.
EASA has created a wonderful job creation racket, by porting airliner maintenance (which is mostly on rolling programmes) to GA.
As I have posted above, the US does not need this, and isn’t exactly covered in wreckage. So how does this work? It works because most life limits are manufacturer imposed for parts supply revenue generation / limiting of perceived liability, and the FAA has ruled that practice is illegal. European manufacturers who put these things in their MMs in the mandatory section had to remove them to get an FAA TC. Only ADs are mandatory, and they are subject to an appeal process so there is a certain level of democracy.
In general, a 50hr service is changing of the oil, filters, and checking a lot of stuff. The Annual is the foregoing plus checking a lot more stuff. And AD checks, if any apply.
I am using SAAG Plus in Speck. Very happy with them. About €1000 p.a.
https://www.saagplus.ch/
How does the US (Part 91) manage?
When I owned TB20, I didn’t keep it in CAMO and I was doing all paperwork myself. It was probably around one hour of work monthly after establishing excel tables for tracking flights, components, SLs and ADs. I guess if CAMO uses proper software, they have probably on average one or two hours of work per aircraft monthly. So It’s up to you decide whether it’s worth 500 or 1000 or 2000 EUR but I’m pretty sure that it shouldn’t depend on value of the aircraft.
Around 1500 Euros/year for Meridian at Piper Germany. I don’t think that is too bad, they keep all aircraft documentation up to date and full schedule of component times. Plus alert me in good time of up and coming items to overhaul/replace.
Aircraft maintenance paperwork is very time consuming, precise and dull work. Even a humble permit renewal or W&B takes a long time. Making up a time life sheet for a new aeroplane can take ages. Any book work like this you can sub out makes life easy. Having a CAMO on board with up to date paperwork does add to the value of the aeroplane too if you need to sell it. In the UK the alternatives to not having a CAMO can vary from a SDMP with everything deferred, to a roughly filled in CAP 543 booklet and the AD’s in the pink pages. Trying to evaluate aircraft like these is not easy.
Our club aeroplane is maintained in CAMO with our local 145 and it makes life very easy.
