Hi Sparks
I went down this route myself a couple of years ago. I found I could get a second hand ATC600, NAV402 and VSWR test set for about 10K for the lot (All with recent calibrations).
I was considering starting up a small company with part time work initially but ultimately going full time. I had plenty of work offered to me including almost exclusive rights to avionics work at a reasonably sized aerodrome.
So why did I not continue with this venture and end up setting up an IT company instead?
One word INSURANCE, or two words actually LIABILITY INSURANCE. I found that this is grossly expensive and almost excludes the independent engineer from going into business. For example I can get £1,000,000 worth of cover for my IT business for not much more than £50 per annum. When I tried to get cover for the avionics business the quotes where of the orders of several thousands pounds per annum!
There was one glimmer of hope though. I eventually found a larger maintenance company that had no avionics personnel themselves. They were happy for me to put the work through their books so I effectively became a contractor for them. The upside of this arrangement was that I was covered by their insurance. The downside was that of course they wanted a slice of the profits.
All in all the IT company seemed a better option and I am doing quite well out of it at the moment but it’s a sad reflection of our industry that after years of training, licences and experiences I am finding far easier and far less risky to make money out of computers than aeroplanes.
Good luck with you venture, if you need them I may still have the quotes for the test equipment around somewhere.
Regards
Max
And of course if you need any websites, custom programming, databases etc…..
