Flying Club Maintenance Officer?

I'm a member of a local flying club which has ~30 members and 3
aircraft. A number of the club's long standing members have moved on in
the last year or so and now its time for some of the other folks to step
up and take the reins.

One of the jobs that is open is the club maintenance officer. The last
guy to do it, did an outstanding job but spent 20-30 hours a week some
weeks riding herd on things and verifying that the fbo and its
maintenance folks did what they said they did and then did it properly.

Could anyone share information on the arrangements they've been
associated with in terms of overseeing aircraft maintenance. If its in
a club setting even better.

I hoping the experiences of the group will give us more options than
asking one poor soul to bear the burden of all of this on their own.

Thanks

Chris Spierings

3 planes? You could easily spend that much time doing the job right.

I would urge you to take this job. You might want to suggest to the club
that each plane have a M.O. or "crew chief" if time is a problem. This
would spread the load around and provide backup.

Flying a plane you manage will make you a better and safer pilot and enrich
your flying experience enormously. There is a certain comfort in knowing a
plane's innards and history intimately when you are really depending on it.
I put a lot of time in for our one plane club. It isn't a lot more time
though than I would spend if I owned it individually and it makes it "my"
plane in a way it could never be otherwise.

If you take the job, I'll be glad to give you advice and help, both
mechanical and political. I'm interested in promoting contact and
information sharing among flying clubs.

Check out our web site and email me privately:

http://baldeagleflyingclub.org

--
Roger Long

In a previous article, Chris Spierings said:
One of the jobs that is open is the club maintenance officer. The last
guy to do it, did an outstanding job but spent 20-30 hours a week some
weeks riding herd on things and verifying that the fbo and its
maintenance folks did what they said they did and then did it properly.

Our club has a "V.P. of Maintenance" (VPM), but each plane has a
Maintenance Coordinator (MC) and Assistant MC. When there is a squawk on
the plane, the member who notices it must write it up on the squawk sheet
in our line shack, and phone the MC, and if he can't reach the MC he's
then supposed to try the AMC, then the VPM. As well, we enourage people
to also post the squawk to the club mailing list.

The MC is responsible for deciding if the squawk is something that needs
immediate attention or should be deferred to the next oil change or
annual. He also will make sure the scheduled maintenance is done on time
(like watching the tach hours to see if an oil change is needed, etc). He
is "compensated" for his time by getting to fly the plane out to the
airport where we get the maintenance done (which also warms up the oil for
the oil change). Some of the MCs are pretty pro-active and help to
organize log books and paper work, as well as organizing wash and wax
parties and installing and removing oil cooler winterization plates.

The VPM is responsible for approving high cost maintenance items, and for
reviewing all the bills that come back. He also is the single point of
contact for ADs and SBs, since we're an all-Piper fleet and most things
apply to more than one of our planes.

Our club, unlike many, doesn't do any of our own maintenance, mostly for
liability reasons, but also because we're a pretty lazy bunch. 50
members, but you only see the same 10 people rotating between the officer,
MC, AMC and Board of Director positions, and participating in wash and wax
parties.

http://www.rochesterflyingclub.com/

--
Paul Tomblin,
Remembering Julie Zipper and the other 3030. 09/11/01
http://xcski.com/~ptomblin/3031_Flags.html

On 11-Sep-2003, Chris Spierings wrote:

The last
guy to do it, did an outstanding job but spent 20-30 hours a week some
weeks riding herd on things and verifying that the fbo and its
maintenance folks did what they said they did and then did it properly.


Unless this time includes some "owner-operator" maintenance like oil
changes, or your fleet includes something exotic, 20-30 hrs per week to
"ride herd on things" seems really excessive. I doubt that my co-owners and
I collectively spend more than 1 hr per week on average to see to it that
routine and unanticipated maintenance gets done on our Arrow. Maybe the
problem is the FBO that is doing your maintenance. In our case, when we
need maintenance we call the chief mechanic at our FBO and he sees to it
that the plane is serviced as requested. Squawks are communicated between
the owners by e-mail, but we could also do it by postings to the plane's web
site.
--
-Elliott Drucker

It isn't just the maintenance. In a typical club, just about everything
that happens on the ramp will fall into the MO's lap. With a few co-owners
communication is easy. With 20 - 30 members there is a lot more
communication required. The PIC has a very high level of responsibility for
the condition of the aircraft when the wheels leave the ground. It isn't
practical to let 30 members go through the logbooks so keeping them informed
and up to date on AD's and other maintenance issues so they have a basis for
fulfilling their responsibility is a big part of the job.

Owner's are also far more responsible for the maintenance of the aircraft
than many (or most) realize. It isn't sufficient to just call the shop and
tell them to do whatever needs to be done and put the plane back on line.
The MO should be up to date on things like AD's, independently verifying
that the shop is doing what is required, checking logbook entries, etc.
This takes some time.

The owner / operator is responsible for the maintenance. The shop works for
the owner / operator. The owner / operator is required to supervise the
shop.
--
Roger Long

"Roger Long" om writes:

It isn't practical to let 30 members go through the logbooks so
keeping them informed and up to date on AD's and other maintenance
issues so they have a basis for fulfilling their responsibility is a
big part of the job.

That's an interesting national difference -- in Canada, the first step
of every flying lesson I took, from my intro flight on, was going
through the journey log to check for airworthiness. The big items
were compass swing, ELT check, and last inspection, but we also had to
look for snags, deferred defects, etc. They didn't have us check for
AD's. When you sign out a plane from the dispatch desk at my flying
club, you always get the Hobbs board and the big blue journey log
(usually falling apart to some degree).

Nowadays, I just keep my Warrior's journey log in the flight bag.


All the best,


David

It isn't really a national difference. Strictly speaking, every club member
here should read through the logs also. In the real world, it wouldn't mean
much to them though.

The words "Maintenance Officer" don't appear in the regulations. The fact
that there is one does not change the PIC's responsibility one whit. The
PIC is delegating part of the job to the MO but remains just as responsible.
The PIC better trust the MO and be sure he is doing the job. If there is an
incident or a ramp check, telling the inspector "Oh, we have a maintenance
officer and he takes care of all that stuff." isn't going to demonstrate
that the PIC was able to fulfil his responsibility. Being able to pull out
a book carried in the plane and show summaries of AD compliance, next
required maintenance times, etc. may not meet the strictest interpretation
of the regs but should usually be sufficient in the real world. If it's
backed up by evidence that the owner's supervise and verify that the MO is
doing his job and the MO supervises and verifies that the shop is doing
theirs, they will probably be satisfied that there is not a pattern of
disregard for the regulations. They'll still nail you on some obscure
little point that you missed if the want to. If they think you are trying,
they'll be less likely to want to.

--
Roger Long
David Megginson wrote in message
...
"Roger Long" om writes:

It isn't practical to let 30 members go through the logbooks so
keeping them informed and up to date on AD's and other maintenance
issues so they have a basis for fulfilling their responsibility is a
big part of the job.

That's an interesting national difference -- in Canada, the first step
of every flying lesson I took, from my intro flight on, was going
through the journey log to check for airworthiness. The big items
were compass swing, ELT check, and last inspection, but we also had to
look for snags, deferred defects, etc. They didn't have us check for
AD's. When you sign out a plane from the dispatch desk at my flying
club, you always get the Hobbs board and the big blue journey log
(usually falling apart to some degree).

Nowadays, I just keep my Warrior's journey log in the flight bag.


All the best,


David

Roger Long wrote:

If you take the job, I'll be glad to give you advice and help, both
mechanical and political. I'm interested in promoting contact and
information sharing among flying clubs.

What's a good source of information (ie. what makes good reading material)
for someone interested in participating on the maintenance side of a club?

Andrew

I haven't found much. Stuff is scattered all over and I can' think of any
specific and comprehensive source.

A lot has changed with the advent of the net. You can research and read all
the AD's and most of the service bulletins yourself.

Thanks for an idea for my fifth aviation article.

--
Roger Long
Andrew Gideon wrote in message
...
Roger Long wrote:

If you take the job, I'll be glad to give you advice and help, both
mechanical and political. I'm interested in promoting contact and
information sharing among flying clubs.

What's a good source of information (ie. what makes good reading material)
for someone interested in participating on the maintenance side of a club?

Andrew

Roger Long wrote:

Thanks for an idea for my fifth aviation article.

So where is it, already???

- Andrew