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Top maintenance shops in Central Europe

I believe your opinion about maintenance companies is based on UK situations on airfields.

Not really; I am in contact with a lot of pilots and owners. That’s where a lot of my opinions come from When EuroGA was started in 2012, we emailed ~3000 pilots who I had corresponded with in the preceeding 10 years.

I hear a lot of stuff which is confidential. I don’t disclose it, though in some cases it is ok in a very general way which would not identify or inconvenience somebody. You can reckon at least 90% of stuff which is “spoken” could never be posted openly.

On the continent I do not think those companies are hunting for customers

I don’t think the UK ones are either; I think my point was that any excessive workload is not likely to last for ever.

There is a saying which goes something like: be careful who you sh*t on on your way up, because you will have to kiss their bum on your way back down And I think there is too much of this going on in today’s world, and not just in GA.

a plane without secured maintenance is grounded, or it gets sold soon. Make sure you have a company (or a freelance) willing to work with you BEFORE you send money to the seller.

Yes, though quite a surprising % of people fly away for maintenance. Looking at one airport I know quite well, I reckon it is way above 50%. Some schools pay a PPL holder for the “ferry” flight, by a discount on the hire.

More importantly you need to have hangarage sorted. This guy got caught in that way.

However, many will tell you that you can have a respray every few years for the money saved by not being hangared. What they might not say is the extra cost of downtime via avionics problems and general corrosion.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

Only the big firms have anything resembling “project management” so if you want a 5 zone heating system installed in a huge house you have just bought and you want them in there on Date X and finish in 2 weeks, it’s no good going to a small guy because he knows that during the 4 weeks (4, because it is only him and his tatooed teenage sidekick) he has to turn away every one of his regular customers, so he will lose most of them for ever. He will very likely let you down. If he is a builder, he will park a rented digger in front of your house for a few weeks because he needs that over-run to finish the previous job, and few customers will chase a builder who “looks like he has started”

Very good post, on the mark in every detail !!
In GA maintenance the equivalent of is <please park your bird here, we’ll see to it asap>.

@ first time buyers of older aircraft, caveat emptor : a plane without secured maintenance is grounded, or it gets sold soon. Make sure you have a company (or a freelance) willing to work with you BEFORE you send money to the seller.

AJ
Germany

By9468840 wrote:

I find it unjust that they don’t even have the rates car mechanics have. If we’d pay more per hour for better mechanics, I am almost certain the total cost of maintenance would come down along with number of maintenance induced errors.

I am kind of surprised about this statement. Good car mechanics, where I live, make hardly 35/h (before taxes and social sec.), and I don’t know any MO charging less than 55. Don’t know what trickels down to the mechanic. of course.

AJ
Germany
Peter,

I believe your opinion about maintenance companies is based on UK situations on airfields. On the continent I do not think those companies are hunting for customers – nor is any greed for business when there is a company on your airfield and you decide to have maintenance done by somebody else. We got a Rotax approved shop on our place but no troubles for pilots doing their own spannering, even getting advice from them. Same for certified planes, the operator on our airfield, town and county owned, Eggenfelden, nobody cares – but yes, you should not do big restaurations in the hangar – basically. We got turntable hangars, three phase current power, some got water taps. Behind closed doors nobody is interested about your actions. Seems in UK there are too many small businesses in the aircraft sector so all are in need for any job available, in consequence a lot of greed for making money. The amount of paperwork required to keep your company certified by the LBA made some shops drop out from the business so even lower numbers to do jobs. No wonder they may be picky on accepting any new customers and quite happy you do most of the maintenance yourself – with a little help from them and signing off.

Vic
vic
EDME

Exactly the same issues, however.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Actually the guy I was referring to doesn’t do avionics….

Tököl LHTL

the engineer picks his clients rather than the other way around.

Not wishing to be picky, but actually in reality he doesn’t

What he means is that currently he is so busy he quotes long lead times for jobs he doesn’t want to do / to customers who look like a one-off. He will also know that such an “I don’t need customers” attitude allows him to charge more, and fewer people will try to negotiate.

I have never heard of an installer telling a customer to fxxx off because he doesn’t like the way he looks, because he got too many quotes, etc. I do have such an email from one famous UK shop telling me to get lost when I pointed him to a reference on something which proved him wrong, and would have resulted in a dramatic over-charging, but that attitude is not unusual in aviation.

The problem is: will he always be so busy? Currently, there is the 8.33 manic and this will run on for a while. “Everybody” should now have 8.33, but there are avenues for delaying:

  • there is a lot of non radio GA, out of farm strips, etc (and obviously most of these are non txp also)
  • the smart people know that the 0.005 add-on is actually the same frequency (and nearly all UK GA “8.33” frequencies are a 0.005 add-on) so the old radios work perfectly
  • outside N Europe, 8.33 has been mostly ignored (along with Mode S, and much else )

so the 8.33 business will carry on as the need for it gradually penetrates deeper into the community.

And a lot of 8.33 conversions get Mode S done “while it is in the shop, having waited 6 months”.

But all this will come to an end, and then a number of shops will go bust, because they have been playing hard to get for years and failed to acquire much goodwill. If you go to a company grudgingly, on a 6 month lead time, you aren’t going to recommend them. You will just tell everyone that you went there because you had no other choice.

A lot of installers are poor businessmen when it comes to long term anything. They furiously make hay while the sun shines and they make it in the field where the hay is easiest to collect. Many are ex air force technicians. A few are good, most are very average; in the air force they lived in a highly structured system.

For example I know one chap, who is actually quite good. Like 90% of the business he can’t design anything complex because he doesn’t really understand the signals, but he can read the wiring diagrams in the back of the IMs, and can create a composite one from them, and can phone Garmin on their dealer support # if it doesn’t work. He works nearly all the time for one Company X which gives him lots of business and he can work in their hangar and they take care of all the signatures. He can work on an N-reg perfectly well (because avionics comes under A&P privileges so an A&P can sign for it) and does a good neat job. You can book him for a job on Date Y but he doesn’t turn up – because X called him.

When you stand back a bit and look at this business, it is no different to builders, plumbers, decorators. They all work in similar ways.

Only the big firms have anything resembling “project management” so if you want a 5 zone heating system installed in a huge house you have just bought and you want them in there on Date X and finish in 2 weeks, it’s no good going to a small guy because he knows that during the 4 weeks (4, because it is only him and his tatooed teenage sidekick) he has to turn away every one of his regular customers, so he will lose most of them for ever. He will very likely let you down. If he is a builder, he will park a rented digger in front of your house for a few weeks because he needs that over-run to finish the previous job, and few customers will chase a builder who “looks like he has started”

I enjoy being N-reg, because I can use a freelance installer. It does mean I have to do the design work myself, and work out a detailed plan for the job, and rent a hangar. But often I can’t get the guy to turn up. Some jobs I can do myself, especially if a harness can be pre-wired at home. I am very fortunate to have a friendly A&P/IA to sign stuff off. If I was EASA-reg I would be tearing my hair out. I would probably get stuff done off the books – I know a chap who installed 100+ GNS430 boxes in G-regs totally off the books.

The topic says “Central Europe” and there are some clever people there, and in the old Soviet Bloc – from the communist days when people got proper education, and had to improvise. Only the clever ones survived, and it was the clever ones who started their own businesses first. Well, all the gangsters also did well I had some dealings with a really smart electronics guy in Poland; unfortunately he got ill and may be gone…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

By946884019-Oct-19 10:59 07. Wrote:
“it is kind of disappointing to see everyone is mostly keeping quiet about this although when it comes to aircraft ownership, having a good maintenance shop is the main question.”

To the OP:
I asked my engineer whether he wanted me to refer him to other pilots for business. His answer: “please don’t! I have more than I can get done and I regularly turn people away at my home field.”

In this case, the engineer picks his clients rather than the other way around. Difficult people and skinflints get avoided. I’m not suggested the OP is one, but finding a good mechanic is as difficult as finding a good wife. I agree that is one of the most important questions for people who want to own old planes.

Last Edited by WhiskeyPapa at 03 Nov 15:20
Tököl LHTL

Part 66 is still very tough to get: if you are fresh young with good technical background you will struggle to get the required practical 5 years experience if you go via the modular route (before you move to fun elsewhere) while if you have 15 years hand-on maintenance the last thing you want to do is 17 theory exams, then once you get that ticket you will obviously start looking to work for CAT or Bizjet as they are far more rewarding

Last Edited by Ibra at 21 Oct 21:38
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

“To get a 66 you need AFAIK 2 years’ work experience and some exams. Or a conversion from A&P but you still have to do all the exams.”

For a Part 66, it’s actually 5 years practical experience and all of the exams unless taking a full-time approved course, which is then 2 years, plus an additional year post-qualification before they can certify. There is no conversion from A&P to 66 or vice-versa other than recognising experience where documented. All of the exams still need to be completed.

The €80K/£70K is on shift with current approvals on Challenger, Gulfstream etc in nice modern facilities. Not everyone’s cup of tea but corporate work leading to this remuneration has certainly swallowed-up many recently from Fairoaks.

Avionics geek.
Somewhere remote in Devon, UK.
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