FAA maintenance UK

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I have asked my freelance A&P/IA (who is too busy right now to take on new work) and he says: “Normally basic single annual is about 40 hr plus any defects, I would budget for 3K”.

If you are N-reg and able to get involved in the maintenance issues, a freelance guy is your best bet, for the best quality work and lowest cost. That’s what I have been doing for 11 years. If you don’t want to / can’t get involved, then you need to use a company, and budget for 2x the cost.

I have asked my freelance A&P/IA (who is too busy right now to take on new work) and he says: “Normally basic single annual is about 40 hr plus any defects, I would budget for 3K”.

40 hours for the basic annual inspection sounds awfully much for a fixed gear single.

Also: For how much does that guy work?
Say it were 75 pounds per hour. Then 40 hours alone would be 3k. No defects considered yet, no parts and materials considered yet. Does he really work for so much less? Wow!

Anyway, even if using a freelancer, I would not budget for 3k. I would budget for between 5 and 30k, and expect something between 5k and 12k. First annuals (after buying a used, 40 year old aircraft) always tend to be expensive. Just my 2 cents…

Peter wrote:

Normally basic single annual is about 40 hr plus any defects

An entire working week? My experience is 8 hrs, one day, assuming owner assistance. It’s an inspection, not a scheduled overhaul.

I would budget for between 5 and 30k

30k only if he buys a 40 year old wreck on Ebay and without a prebuy

I don’t think a UK freelancer will charge £75/hr. That would be a company rate, especially if you include 20% VAT.

Also, the materials on a SEP Annual aren’t more than a few hundred £ normally. Of course if there is remedial work then it could be anything, but everybody knows that. That is largely why you do a good prebuy: you find defects and knock the selling price down accordingly.

The remaining “30k possibility” is getting a wrecked engine; that’s hard to avoid with a prebuy directly, but one can minimise that by looking at the flight logs and the general situation.

If you’re in the south east, you could do worse than give Ian Chaplin a call, and then pay him a visit. His company, General Aero Services (Thurrock EGMT) has N-reg customers from as far afield as Cumbria and Kirkcudbrightshire.

In the last five years or so I’ve seen GAS invest in a new maintenance hangar and a posh tarmac runway, so I guess I’m not their only satisfied customer.