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How many people get maintenance done away from base?

Most people I know, and especially flying schools, do not use a based company to work on their plane.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Ours is done away from base. Not a long flight.

Pros - one less person/group of people to fall out with at home base, costs are lower than they would be at home base, can reclaim home base parking fees for days when a/c is away for maintenance.

Cons - requires two people and a bit of faffing to take it for maintenance. Maintenance company are not good at accurately telling us when they can fit it in and repeatedly put us off when we need them, maintenance company seem to have to de-prioritise our a/c at short notice in order to work on based flying school a/c.

A/C is currently with them for a 50hr check. We ran out of hours in early March, having told them a couple of weeks in advance when we'd need it done. They put us off and put us off, once with a late email when two of us had made plans to take the a/c to them. Eventually they took it about 10 days ago, and I understand little progress has been made. We don't expect it back until next week at the earliest.

So basically a 50hr check has grounded the a/c for a month or more. Is all maintenance like this? A good thing that the weather has been rubbish, or I think I'd be kicking up a stink.

EGLM & EGTN

I have maintenance at the field and I try to use it because otherwise one day it might disappear. About half the aircraft stationed at the field use it, the other half for various reasons not -- the most frequent being that their aircraft is better off with a specialized company.

My aircraft hasn't seen a different maintenance shop in almost 15 years which is why I am going to take it to another shop for this year's annual.

Ours is at another airport approx 50 mins flying away. There are no maintenance facilities at our home base.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

So basically a 50hr check has grounded the a/c for a month or more. Is all maintenance like this?

No. The FTO where I instruct has it's own maintenance shop (unfortunately not at my home base) and a 50 hour check for a single takes half a day if nothing is broken. Sometimes we fly there in the morning with a student or two, go for lunch (which the boss pays for in cases like that) while the mechanics work on the aircraft and fly back in the afternoon.

EDDS - Stuttgart

a 50 hour check for a single takes half a day if nothing is broken

Unless you're in a CAMO, you can do the 50 hour check yourself which is what I do. Takes about 2 hours.

So basically a 50hr check has grounded the a/c for a month or more. Is all maintenance like this? A good thing that the weather has been rubbish, or I think I'd be kicking up a stink.

I see a lot of this, and it's always puzzling why people put up with it.

I don't know about regs elsewhere in Europe, but in the UK, the only time you are forced to use a company for the 50hr check is if the plane is G-reg and one of the following conditions applies:

  • it's in a syndicate of more than 20 shareholders
  • it's in a syndicate where some shareholders hold less than 5%
  • it is being rented out
  • it is being used for flight training or AOC work (charter etc)
  • it is being used for training a syndicate member towards the initial award of a license or a rating
  • some ADs need doing

I hope I missed nothing out

But many syndicates don't have anyone who can do maintenance - even the most basic "plugs and oil" which is what the 50hr check is mostly about.

There is no reason for a company to take so long. The 50hr check on a common type takes about 5-6 man-hours so 2 blokes can do it in one morning.

The reason why I do my own 50hr checks is because I would be billed a fixed price of £600, which is not insignificant. The oil is £70, the filter is £15. Plus the company (JAR145 etc) used power screwdrivers and chewed up the cowling screws.

I try to use it because otherwise one day it might disappear

That is very much the way one works in GA: build and support a team of good trusted people. But one should not support the others. It's usually easier on the N-reg, because of the ability to use freelance engineers for everything including the Annual.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Our (G-reg) aircraft doesn't hit any of those points you mention.

Are you saying I could just do the 50hr check myself? Would someone have to sign it off?

I'm a fairly competent mechanic, I've built auto engines, always serviced my own cars, etc. Perfectly capable of doing plugs and oil type stuff.

I don't know why we put up with this sort of 'service'. It was exactly the same story at the annual.

Promise a start date that suits us, can't meet it, don't bring us the aircraft yet, bring it next week, no - still too busy, next week, then next week... finally take it. Actually can't start for another week, it'll just sit for a while, made a start, done a few bits, sorry - we had to prioritise a based aircraft.... back to it, need some parts, not sure where to get them, are you ok for us to order these? Parts turned up, done a bit more, back to our based aircraft.... back on it, just discovered something else wrong, order some more parts, should be finished next week, no next week, oh absolutely won't be more than another week. Ok, here's your aircraft, and a list as long as your arm of things we couldn't fix...

I'm still finding my feet in the group and trying to work out exactly what is normal/reasonable from an engineering perspective. All I know is that if it were a garage I'd have binned them at the first "actually we can't do it this week".

EGLM & EGTN

Maintenance is based 15 miles away and they do a great job. Really quick turnaround. I've never known them take longer than 1/2 a day to do a 50. And they are more than happy to come over to us when an AOG. Which they did on bank holiday friday and then saturday when a mag failed.

They charge about the same as a local car spanner as well.

I always pay them within minutes of getting an invoice and come xmas 80 quid worth of beer buys me an awful lot of good will.

Saying that I really wish they were on site.

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