Left Mag Dead... After Annual???

"RST Engineering" wrote in message
.. .
Three magic words to live by:

OWNER ASSISTED INSPECTIONS



Post-Maintenance Test Flight (by FBO/Shop owner)


--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

If you have your mechanic fly the plane after annual, whose insurance covers
the flight in the event of a problem? In my case, it's a twin or a high
performance aerobatic tail dragger. I wouldn't trust a mechanic (or anyone
else) unless they were named on the insurance policy AND had a lot of time
in type.

On the other hand, as far as I know, paying a lot of money does not
necessarily equate to a quality job, and yes, I do help with the annuals as
well.

"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
...

"RST Engineering" wrote in message
.. .
Three magic words to live by:

OWNER ASSISTED INSPECTIONS



Post-Maintenance Test Flight (by FBO/Shop owner)

Still not near as good as owner assisted. In nearly 10 years of ownership
no one has layed a tool on my airplane without me watching like a hawk. 99%
of the work is done by me with the IA inspecting. So far no surprises and
as a plus the cost of an annual plumets.



--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

On Tue, 28 Feb 2006 02:37:27 GMT, "Viperdoc"
wrote:

If you have your mechanic fly the plane after annual, whose insurance covers
the flight in the event of a problem? In my case, it's a twin or a high
performance aerobatic tail dragger. I wouldn't trust a mechanic (or anyone
else) unless they were named on the insurance policy AND had a lot of time
in type.

On the other hand, as far as I know, paying a lot of money does not
necessarily equate to a quality job, and yes, I do help with the annuals as
well.


I do just as Matt does. I take the Mechanic with me. I fly the
plane out on a 20-30 min flight with him sitting in the right seat so
if anything were to pop up, he is there and he can see what is going
on. I have done this with all the aircraft that I fly/manage. It
helps builds a good relationship with your mechanic and he knows that
he will be in the plane on its first flight when it comes out of the
shop, so he better have it together right. So far we have had no
issues with any of the aircraft. As a matter of fact, I am getting a
Duke out of annual on Wednesday and I have already made an arrangement
with the mechanic on Thursday morning for the flight before I put
passengers in it on Friday.

Scott D.

take out the obvious to email me

On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 09:40:01 -0800, "RST Engineering"
wrote:

Three magic words to live by:

OWNER ASSISTED INSPECTIONS


Jim

That's good if you have the time and its not a very long and drawn out
job. But when an annual takes a minimum of 8 full days, and it needs
to be put back into service as quick as possible because it is losing
money as it sits there, and you have other planes to fly or have
another job that needs your attention as well. When are you going to
be able to be there 100% of the time? For a smaller GA plane like a
172 or an arrow or something similar I would say heck yea, but when
you start getting into larger, higher performance aircraft, you just
can't allot the time that it would take to do such things. At some
point, you do have to rely on the mechanic. All you have to do is ask
around and you can start weeding out poorly disciplined mechanics in a
heartbeat.


Scott D.

take out the obvious to email me

"Dave Stadt" wrote in message
. com...

"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
...

OWNER ASSISTED INSPECTIONS



Post-Maintenance Test Flight (by FBO/Shop owner)

Still not near as good as owner assisted. In nearly 10 years of ownership
no one has layed a tool on my airplane without me watching like a hawk.
99% of the work is done by me with the IA inspecting. So far no surprises
and as a plus the cost of an annual plumets.

In seven years of going to the same shop, I've had no surprises either.

Whatever (or however) floats your boat, but I'm not as handy with my hands
as most.

"Dave Stadt" writes:

[... with owner-assisted annuals] the cost of an annual [plummets].

If you include the opportunity cost of your own time (the income
you eschew) in the calculation, you may find otherwise.

- FChE

"Blanche" wrote in message
...
I'm going thru it right this minute. And I'm not happy.
Sequence of events:
Mid-Jan I was coming back from a trip and the TKM radio was having
problems - the UPSAT was jsut fine. Met with the avionics dude, he
thought it was 1) spark plug wire, 2) spark plug 3) mag.

Into the shop...cleaned and regapped the plugs but oil on the
bottom plug of cylinder #1. Rebuilt cylinder.

Aircraft down for 6 weeks due to shop being very busy.

Saturday - call from shop, things are good, they ran it, life it good.

Sunday AM - I drive out to airport. During runup, 500 rpm drop on right
side. Parked in front of the shop's door rather than putting it back
into my hangar.

Monday noon - just got the call. All sort of things that *should* have
been caught at annual. These types of issues do not instantly appear,
they evolved. And the airplane has been in the shop twice before
for other periodic maintenance issues.

I'm on my way to the shop now.

I'm not happy.

Find a new shop.

Dave Stadt wrote:

Still not near as good as owner assisted. In nearly 10 years of ownership
no one has layed a tool on my airplane without me watching like a hawk. 99%
of the work is done by me with the IA inspecting. So far no surprises and
as a plus the cost of an annual plumets.

With three very young boys and a job that takes me away from home, I wish I
had the time to participate the annual. Once again, this demonstrates
that time has a monetary value and some have to be willing to trade money
for time.

As far as surprises, a 45 minute VFR flight around the airport is the
remedy.

--
Peter

"John Doe" wrote in message
news:qLKMf.43256$Dh.29053@dukeread04...

Who is paying for the mechanics time while he/she is doing this?


They are, if they value my continued business. If not, there are plenty
of
other shops that are more than willing to work on my plane.


Although they may not include the time on your bill, in one way or another,
you are still paying for at least a part of it. If they consider the time as
overhead, it gets built into the hourly rate, and spread among (amongst?)
all of their customers. If they 'value your continued business' they should
build it into the bill. That way, the customer who merely shows up and picks
up their plane isn't paying for the time the mechanic spends with you.

Although there are plenty of shops around here willing to work on my plane,
there aren't many I am willing to let work on my plane.

For my type of ownership, I agree with Jim W. Owner assisted annuals are the
way to go.