What's the difference SEP to SET?

[alex90]

Step Turn,

Apologies for the use of the term "they" - I meant it entirely for the particular set of aeroplanes that I was referring to in my response. These are old, badly maintained, and not looked after either by pilots, or by the club / ATO, or by the maintenance facilities, or by the owners.

The aeroplanes you mention are clearly NOT spam-cans by the general meaning of the term. From your explanation, they are well maintained, classic aeroplanes (meant in the term "well looked after antique", rather than "classic design"). This does not conform to my meaning of a spam-can!

It is very good to hear that some people out there do look after their aeroplanes, and do spend the money to have a nice, well working machine.

I think this "spam-can" stems (specifically in the UK) from the fact that the clubs / ATOs no longer own the aeroplanes they operate in many cases. The company who own the planes, do just that, own the plane and lease it out for as much money as they can, for as little cost as possible which invariably means as little maintenance / looking after as is possible. The pilots make complaints to the ATO/Clubs about the state of the aeroplanes, occasionally at their costs. The ATO / Clubs then occasionally make complaints about the state of the aeroplanes they fly, and the leaser does the absolute minimum to adhere to the contract, and refuse to do any further changes (or occasionally offer the ATO/club to pay for their upgrades which they naturally decline - why pay for someone else's upgrades). Then you end up in this vicious circle whereby the pilots have no control over the planes they fly. The clubs / ATOs have no control over the planes they operate. The owners / leaser is the only one who profits.

In my mind, this all started with a few companies offering to lease the ATOs/Clubs newer aeroplanes for less than it was costing them to operate their own, with less up-front costs, and hence (at least in the short-run) higher profit margins. The catch as we all now know all but too well, is that there is no such thing as a free lunch! When the planes are cheaper, there must be a reason, the leaser isn't going to make a deficit just for the sake of providing a good service (otherwise they'll disappear soon enough). Hence, as they must make a profit, something has got to give, in this case, the maintenance, serviceability, etc... All the terms that we have come to know leading to a spam-can.

I once taxied one of said spam-cans over to the maintenance facility, as the ADF wasn't working, the display on the secondary radio wasn't working, the VOR/DME seemed about 20 degrees off and the main radio (which looked ancient) was intermittent. All of which had been in the tech-log for over 20hours, and brought to the maintenance facility several times over the course of the past few weeks. We get there, the engineer takes out the main radio, blows a little on the back and pops it back in, tells me the ADF won't be working, puts a sticker on it saying INOP, looks at the secondary radio and tells me that I won't need it but leaves it in there. Tells me that the radio now works fine, and that the plane is serviceable for flight. I grumble a little with him saying that it isn't acceptable to continue like this, anyway, one of my (good) instructors comes by and says that he'll come up with me free of charge just in case. Needless to say, within about 15 minutes into the flight, the radio started playing up again, managed to get back into the circuit before the radio completely failed where after being told to orbit downwind until advised due to incoming jet traffic, we did around 10 orbits before realising that the radio wasn't going to come back on, no matter how much we fiddled with it and followed no radio procedures. I complained profusely with the club, and the maintenance facility stating that I wasn't going to be paying for my ruined flight as a result of shoddy maintenance works, especially if this level of "looking after" is the level which the airframe, and engine are also being maintained to. (that's at around £200 per tacho hour + landing fee & fuel surcharge!) needless to say, I lost, and paid for the flight, the landing fee, and the taxying to and from the maintenance facility twice!

The bigger problem, is that this is the case everywhere I have been, and everywhere my friends learnt / are learning to fly. Little by little I am going around all the clubs in the vicinity of London, but have found very little difference between the clubs' quality of aeroplanes available. A friend has been waiting 2 months for his first solo as a result of radio failure, suction failure, electrical failure, rattling noises coming from the engine making him abort the takeoff amongst other issues! (different club, different aerodrome, different company, different leaser).

So if ALL you have ever known is to fly in a run-down aeroplane, agreeing to fly and paying huge amounts of money per hour to fly these old, badly maintained spam-cans. You simply don't know what it is like to fly anything but these old, beaten, badly maintained aeroplanes. I had no idea that it was a legal requirement to have fuel type and quantity written on the wings because I simply have not seen it on all the spam-cans I learnt on.

If pilots are to be taught this, not fly if not perfect behaviour. The instructors should be the first point of call for this instruction. But the instructors have two sides to the story, one is the fact they need to fly every hour they can for their tiny pay. Second if they complain too much and refuse to fly too often, (i have seen this) the club/ATO normally has a word with them about their behaviour towards flying their aeroplanes, and if they disagree (as I have seen a couple of trainee instructors) they get shown the door. Their arguments were quite often too sound to reason with - such as "I am not going to risk my life, and the student's life, flying an un-airworthy plane due to its lack of maintenance", yet after having had a word, another instructor (generally someone who has been there for decades) takes over the lesson, and goes flying anyway. (scary really!) [I was once told about an instructor who did take-over another instructor's lesson due to said reason, just after takeoff they lost one of their main wheels (it just fell off)]

Until I flew in NZ, where the club owned the planes, and a maintenance facility to make sure they were top standard. I had NO idea what it was like to fly a proper, well maintained, well organised, serviceable club aeroplane. How could I?

Step Turn - from your figures, it sounds as though you're in the USA where there might just be a larger set of options for your to choose from than us in the UK (on this tiny island...). From what I have read, there is also a much higher level of satisfaction required for people to make purchases (and quite rightly so), there is also more demand, and hence, more competition, which is great! Although unless the plane had substantial sentimental value, or is kept as a classic aeroplane, is it really worth spending more 1.5 times its new cost for the 182? (actually asking - not questioning the logic)

I think the topic really is: instructors should teach many more aspects, than just the flying and perhaps shouldn't be trusted blindly rather than power-plant questions!

Jim59 - interesting! That looks like a really cool machine!! :-) Have you flown one?