Those prices don't look far wrong. We pay anything from £200 to £750 for a 50-hour, depending on what the engineer finds. 150-hour is a bit more (£500 to £1,000).
Annuals anything from £1,000 to £5,000. (The FM immunity year).
The last C of A ("Star annual") was about £1,500. The one before that was £14,500. You can guess what happened that time!
It really does all depend on what's broken. And remember most of the aircraft we fly are many times older than our cars. Sometimes the aircraft are older than WE are.
The most important advice I was ever given was on choice of maintenance outfit:
- It has to be on your home field (because that's where most things will go wrong);
- Stick with the same outfit - because every time you change, the new one has the opportunity to find all the things the previous one did wrong (cynical, but not untrue);
- Build up a good relationship with the maintenance outfit, so they know you and look after you.
- If you have the right people in the group to do it, have a "nice guy" who knows a bit to do the normal contact with maintenance, and a "nasty guy" who can be set onto them if they mess you about. It's amazing how quickly they catch on...
You can do your own 50-hour checks on a Private Cat or PFA type (as long as there are no ADs to comply with). You do need to know what you're doing, so if in doubt, spend the £250 and get it done right.
The more bells and whistles, and the more years on the airframe, the more it costs.