I have waited for various stupid things for 1-2months for Piper Cherokee , for example flaps acutator rod..
Annual of my DR253 usually takes 2-3 days. As a matter of fact, this year’s was completed just yesterday, I’ll go and fetch the aircraft tomorrow.
I had an unscheduled downtime earlier this year due to a magneto failure. Accounting for the time to remove the magneto (1 weekend day), bringing it to the repair shop, have it repaired, and find an appointment with the mechanic to rebuild and sign off everything, the downtime was about 4 weeks. Not a biggie, the weather was miserable during that time anyway.
The latest is that my propeller governor has failed its six year inspection with extreme wear. This is disappointing, given that the engine underwent a zero time rebuild, with a brand-new propeller, six years (just over 300 hours) ago. I shall be contacting the engine builders with a few questions. For example, what inspection is performed before a governor is fitted/refitted, and should it not be fitted with wear compatible with only a short service life/early failure?
You should definitely contact the “builders” with a few questions…
Sad to hear all these stories. 6 years is outrageous and sounds practically impossible, short of immersion in seawater for 6 years 
Secondhand parts?
The answers to “how long” always astonish me… is there no monitoring of the aircraft condition during the year, enabling the ordering of key parts? I know this is a bad joke but surely “continued airworthiness” and “CAMO” both have the word “continued” in them
@Peter no there isn’t. You go to the shop. They say what is to be done. You wait until it’s fixed.
That’s the way I hear it from around my airfield. Typical downtime for a typical “I don’t care about maintenance” on my field seems to be around 6-12 weeks.
The worst part I see in this is the dependency from the shop. It’s in the air again only whenever ALL is done.
Now I am doing it already a tad better. I fly to my examiner to have him see the plane, about three months before the annual. And then I do what we agreed upon (or what he says 😉 ). But still it’s a lot of communication and negotiation. However I can preorder all the necessary stuff and it’s getting better.
That’s working out quite nicely, which is why I am a bit reluctant to change it. But I can foresee that I won’t have that time for free this year.
I would regard that as unacceptable, but the interesting bit is what most people can do about it.
I reckon the vast majority use a company for the 50hr checks and that company should damn well use the opportunity to spot stuff in advance. An Annual is nearly all just a visual check, after all.
Peter wrote:
You should definitely contact the “builders” with a few questions…Sad to hear all these stories. 6 years is outrageous and sounds practically impossible, short of immersion in seawater for 6 years Secondhand parts?
The answers to “how long” always astonish me… is there no monitoring of the aircraft condition during the year, enabling the ordering of key parts? I know this is a bad joke but surely “continued airworthiness” and “CAMO” both have the word “continued” in them
If your aircraft is under some type of airworthiness monitoring, like part-CAO or part-CAMO, there is no particular monitoring of the airframe outside the scope of the maintenance program (eg. AMP), unless there is a request sent by the owner/operator – why would there be. The preventive maintenance is all carried out during the applicable inspections as per AMP and additionally a good shop will carry out preventive maintenance of well know weak links. Few MROs/shops (even on high end Gulfstreams etc.) have a stock pile of spare parts. They need to be ordered. The anticipation is not necessarily that the inspections leads to a finding broken parts – right or wrong philosophy is whole different conversation..
UdoR wrote:
@Peter no there isn’t. You go to the shop. They say what is to be done. You wait until it’s fixed.
I don´t see it that way.
IF you´re using a part-CAO or your own AMP or even part-CAMO, you tell MRO/shop what they need to inspect (AMP) and if you don´t want further, then instruct them to do nothing more than that – they should NOT be carrying out any SBs or work that they´ve not been told too. Ask to see the work orders they follow, if you or your management have not issued them.
Yeah, there is a direct tradeoff between
It’s a personal choice
It’s much easier with N-reg but subject to various factors.
IF you´re using a part-CAO or your own AMP or even part-CAMO, you tell MRO/shop what they need to inspect (AMP) and if you don´t want further, then instruct them to do nothing more than that – they should NOT be carrying out any SBs or work that they´ve not been told too. Ask to see the work orders they follow, if you or your management have not issued them.
My head hurts just reading that.
It’s a personal choice
There are several choices involved 
My N-registered Annual downtime has varied between 1 week and probably something like 4 months. I like to work on and improve my plane, and be at the hangar…. Flying it is a nice part of the package, not my only pleasure.
But yes, doing it mostly myself, aided by an A&P who also comes to our house for dinner and drinks occasionally (with attendant airplane philosophizing) makes aircraft maintenance and inspection a whole lot less stress, and a whole lot easier to manage.
Silvaire wrote:
IF you´re using a part-CAO or your own AMP or even part-CAMO, you tell MRO/shop what they need to inspect (AMP) and if you don´t want further, then instruct them to do nothing more than that – they should NOT be carrying out any SBs or work that they´ve not been told too. Ask to see the work orders they follow, if you or your management have not issued them.My head hurts just reading that.
LOL, yeah EASA land. Undisputable there´s a lot (possibly excessive) of legalities involved. Not all of it is worthless in my view.
Silvaire wrote:
There are several choices involved My N-registered Annual downtime has varied between 1 week and probably something like 4 months. I like to work on and improve my plane, and be at the hangar…. Flying it is a nice part of the package, not my only pleasure.But yes, doing it mostly myself, aided by an A&P who also comes to our house for dinner and drinks occasionally (with attendant airplane philosophizing) makes aircraft maintenance and inspection a whole lot less stress, and a whole lot easier to manage.
Precisely, each to his own – and that´s the beauty of most hobbies.
I wouldn´t want to “waste” (in my view) my time on working on my airplane – I´d rather spend that time flying it around. The same with the EASA land “management” of the aircraft – I don´t want too many worries about the legal status of my aircraft. I´ve already learned that it may be that an shop is more price on their annual, but on the other hand that same shop saves you a lot of cash on parts that the can produce inhouse, ending up with money spend on one hand and saved on the other. The real problem is find a reliable, transparent management and shop.
