wondering if going N-reg is worth it
IMHO, in Europe, it remains worth it for proactive owners who are willing and able to manage their maintenance, and who already have or can get the FAA pilot papers.
For the IR (the usual reason some years ago) it probably isn’t worth going N-reg now unless you also meet the above criteria.
one should choose their CAMO carefully and with due dilligence
Most people don’t have the option. Their maintenance company is the CAMO. For many, the only way around that is to do your maintenance off-base, which a lot of people do, but it is extra hassle especially if you are AOG’d at your base.
On N-register my A&P mechanic and I are friends who maintain our personal machinery seriously, not ‘business partners’ wasting time and money on pointless nonsense unimaginable to the people who designed and built my planes.
Agreed, and I really enjoy being N-reg, but Europe has gone off in a different direction where things are driven by industry interests, national CAAs collecting fees from maintenance companies, and other permutations of vested interests. Things are improving, as Tmo says, but from a low baseline.
Just wanted to note that I ran into an EASA leaflet about simplified Part-66 licenses for GA – I don’t know what it takes to become an A&P mechanic under the FAA, but perhaps we’re closing the gap somewhat. A Part-66-L license will not need any formal training and an examination can be done anywhere the CAA allows (eg. aeroclub); it will allow the holder to issue ARCs and perform aiworthiness reviews for ELA1 planes (and sailplanes, balloons and airships). The TB20 doesn’t quite make it, but lots of lesser planes do.
So ‘rewording to improve legal clarity’ takes 2 years? That’s the same time period as the entire Brexit process, if that ever happens.
Probably objections from the industry, predictably – see e.g. here
ELA1 is already here but the 1200kg limit is quite limiting, and having ELA2 as well would make it economical for a lot of freelance maintenance to come about, and obviously there is much more “meat” in > 1200kg.
Also a lot of the < 1200kg scene was already doing own maintenance to some degree.
Because freelance maintenance is of the order of 1/2 the cost of using a company (even if you are not paying the engineer in cash) this has the potential to skim a lot of income off the maintenance company + CAMO industry. Already we have a situation (at most airfields I know about) whereby a large % (say 50%) of owners are flying “somewhere” for maintenance even though there are say 3 companies there. Can’t they get what they want from any of those 3???? Many previous threads of course…
Peter wrote:
Already we have a situation (at most airfields I know about) whereby a large % (say 50%) of owners are flying “somewhere” for maintenance even though there are say 3 companies there. Can’t they get what they want from any of those 3???? Many previous threads of course…
Unfortunately my experience is half of the companies involved in maintenance are incompetent. Let me recap my experience from my last annual which was carried out at a new maintenance facility. To our misfortunate, the previous manager of the facility was demoted after the shop was bought out by a larger maintenance shop and he is now rigidly controlled by managers from afar. This lead to the following:
- Maintenance facility refused to accept the documentation that all ADs had been complied with and rechecked them – the ADs were all (legitimately) signed off in the aircraft log book, the inspector just simply refused to accept it and demanded the aircraft be stripped such that they could check each had been complied with. Whilst doing that, they billed for the same item – such as counting time for removing rear seat, removing cowling etc – several times. Before you say ‘small stuff’, this lead to a discrepancy of more than €3000 on the finished bill. Please note we aren’t the only ones who have had bills bumped up by double counting.
- ran down the battery and then, in contradiction to Cirrus instructions, tried to start with ground power attached which then fried the main battery (which was 3 months old), blew the MCU solenoids and destroyed the starter.
- carried out an optional SB for the aircraft. Cirrus claims this should take no more than 4 hours, they claimed 13(!!!) hours to perform.
- whilst replacing the Alternator 2 – which they claimed it was defective, my documentation showed that it was working perfectly when the aircraft was dropped off – they strapped the cables so tightly that during the first few hours, the connectors broke, leading to the field wire shorting out against the casing of the new alternator leading to a blown voltage regulator.
- as part of the down time due to the depleted battery, the Sandel lost it’s settings. Instead of ringing either Sandel or Cirrus to find out the correct settings, they ‘experimented’ for several hours, looking to bill us 450€ for their ‘trial and error’. I made one call, got the settings and configured it in 10 minutes….
- then the Sandel failed which led them to recommend to send it to a ‘reputable avionics shop’; said shop was incapable of diagnosing a blown bulb.
Based on these horror stories, would you realistically expect people to use local maintenance? In my mind, these shops should be examined under a microscope and have their faillings exposed for all to see such that the cowboys go out of business. Then there would be enough business for the others not to worry about ELA2 doing maintenance using freelance engineers. These guys get business from word of mouth so they usually do more, go farther than your typical shop which doesn’t care what happens, as long as a big bill can be written……
Peter wrote:
Already we have a situation (at most airfields I know about) whereby a large % (say 50%) of owners are flying “somewhere” for maintenance even though there are say 3 companies there.
This is what I´m doing since three years. On my base near Berlin I have a big Maintenance Company which did the maintenance on my plane for years.
They do not want you to look at what they are doing. In the winter season they did an engine start of my plane without preheating, although I did announce to come to the airfield for warming up the plane. They demanded the full program of Cessna SID`s although only a few had to be carried out for the newer ones. Then they doubled the fare for the oxygen refill from 80 to 160 Euro. Now I fly 30 nautical miles to another airport where I pay the half of the costs for maintenance and can do some work on my own plane while I learn a lot whilst performing this under supervision.
Peter wrote:
Probably objections from the industry, predictably – see e.g. here
Your ability to see conspiracy in cock-up never ceases to amaze me. :)
The cause of the delay is a spat between EASA and the Commission over the drafting and general lack of resource at the Commission.
In fact, the whole Part-ML move is about NOTHING ELSE than liability. It’s about carefully shifting the liability for maintenance and (and partial disregard of manufacturer “instructions”) from EASA, the CAAs and the MAINTENANCE COMPANIES to the OWNERS/OPERATORS. Little else. So, I can see that the wording is regarded as super-critical and will go through several more loops from now on.
Well, I might be in a charitable mood for a change 
and think that this is to alleviate some of the excesses of the Part M environment where applied to light GA.
Of course the industry won’t be happy about it; no need for a “conspiracy” accusation. Just normal business…
For owner incentives, see any of hundreds of previous posts here, with this one being a “classic” especially as it is taking place in Germany!!!
