why is UK GA full of whinging gits?

[Ludwig]

The recent thread about Kemble’s landing fees got me thinking; why is UK GA full of whinging gits?

Everytime someone wants to charge a half decent fee for a product or service all the skin-flint GA moaners get on their high-horse. If it’s not the” I want the best aircraft to be rented to be for next to nothing” brigade, it’s the ”I want my maintaince done for nothing, even though I pay the thick end of £100 an hour for my car to be serviced” people, or the “why should I pay to land my aircraft here” even though the fee only amounts to no more than a small round of drinks or a half decent bottle of wine, tribe.

Get real people, Aviation is expensive, get used to it or get out and find something else to do. Everyone has to make a living, even airfield operators. If we don’t start paying what amounts to a sensible fee to land at airports, or realistic hourly rates for our instructors or maintenance bods, why the hell should they stay in the business, if they leave or build houses on their airfield because they cannot afford to keep subsiding GA, who loses then? We do., and it’s no use banging on about the USA where everything is cheaper bigger and better; if you want to benefit from their economic model, emigrate.

We need to support GA, there are enough pressures against it (including I admit some aerodrome operators who seem hell-bent on destroying GA but that’s a small ignorant minority), without us closing our minds and pockets to those without whose services and facilities we would be finished.

[S-Works]

I am not very happy about your use of operates when I assume you meant operators?

:O

[Mr Wolfie]

......"Why is UK GA full of whinging gits?"....... whinged Ludwig.:D :p ;)

[IO540]

Ludwig,

Very valid questions raised IMHO.

I reckon that over the last decade or two, progressively, the UK GA industry has got itself stuck deeper and deeper in a rut where an increasing proportion of participants have no money but are still somehow trying to hang in there.

The only way to prevent an eventual collapse of GA (outside of farm strips) is to attract a lot more people who have a disposable income appropriate to the costs of this particular leisure activity.

But whenever this is suggested, a load of traditionalists jump on one's head and moan that they will be priced out of their hobby.

In reality they too would benefit from a substantial influx of money, modern equipment, modern methods, and modern attitudes, but instead anything new is almost universally seen as a threat.

It is interesting to note that most other leisure activities seem to be successfully regulating their participants' profile. Perhaps this is because, in GA, quite a few people are willing to work for next to nothing.

[Monocock]

Ludwig

I am so pleased that someone else is prepared to put their head above the PPRuNe parapet and speak their mind. The last few times I did I was shot down so fast I didn't know what hit me. Be prepared for the disagreeing posts that follow soon and please choose to ignore them. Your point is valid and it echoes nationwide, not just in flying too.

The common culture is now for people to very much expect something for nothing and it really gets my goat. They whinge in the cinema about paying £3.25 for a tub of popcorn for their child and then go to Currys on a Sunday morning and blow £1800 on a plasma TV.

We have house wives whinging about the price of milk going up by 1 pence a pint (when farmers are busily going out of business) but are happy to spend £400 on some stupid pair of Jimmy Choo shoes.

The world HAS gone mad. It's no longer a case of "it's going mad". We have arrived.

My point is this. Kemble put their landing fees up by a few quid. Whoppee. How many people question whether their maintenance bill should be £1595 or £1592 at the annual check?

None.

"Oh well, that's different because the maintenance is my wellbeing on the line" some might say.

Bo***x. There are people employed for our safety at Kemble who will actually pull us out of our burning wrecks when our Jimmy Choo shoes slip off our brake pedals. These guys need to be paid.

I would like to add that I have absolutely NOTHING to do with Kemble at all. I call in there a few times a year (it's only a 15 minute flight from home).

If some of my money goes towards lowering the height of the urinals then that's fine with me though....... :p

[Maxflyer]

The common culture is now for people to very much expect something for nothing and it really gets my goat. They whinge in the cinema about paying £3.25 for a tub of popcorn for their child and then go to Currys on a Sunday morning and blow £1800 on a plasma TV.

You are so right. They could get at least 550 tubs of popcorn instead of a silly plasma screen tv. Let's face it, who would want to take a tv to the cinema anyway?

I think landing fees should be paid based on how polite people are at the aerodrome. If they smile and say please give them an extra fiver:O

Oh and by the way; Bose X, I'm pretty sure you can operate in the hanger as long as it is clean and the surgeon hasn't drunk too much!

[ratsarrse]

The only way to prevent an eventual collapse of GA (outside of farm strips) is to attract a lot more people who have a disposable income appropriate to the costs of this particular leisure activity.



Or reduce some of the costs that make it so expensive in the first place. I'm thinking punitive fuel taxation etc.

I don't mind spending money on things if I feel that I'm getting something of value for my money. Why do people complain about landing fees? Probably because they don't feel they are getting anything worthwhile for the cash they're handing over.

why is UK GA full of whinging gits?

Because it's British, damnit! The empire was built on whinging...

[tacpot]

Because the UK is full of whinging gits! Its not by chance that the Aussies hate whinging poms.

The British enjoy a good moan. It bonds us all together - us against the evil Airfield owners, Maintenance companies, the CAA, the Government etc.

Pessimism is a sport in the UK. As an optimist, I'm happy to stand on the sidelines and cheer. :}

[maggioneato]

It seems to be the people with the biggest aircraft who gripe the most about landing fees, they must have known when they bought their pride and joy that it would cost more than the average puddlejumper to land, yet they still gripe. Kemble is a lovely place to vist, AV8 is the best around and someone has to pay for the new raised decking outside. We are talking peanuts to land compared to the facilities offered. It won't put me off visiting. :p

[cessna l plate]

Very simple really.....

Every pound we spend on equipment, books, landing fees etc is a pound that we don't spend on the thing with the big fan at the front.

Sadly, suppliers of these things have a mind set of " aviation is expensive, so if they want X, we'll bung a few nicker on the price" Go to maplins and see how much a headset & mic will cost, and then nip over to your local air shop and play spot the difference!!!

Some landing fees are worth the money, and some are not. But if like me you are trying to achieve membership of this exlusive club on a budget, with a young family, then if my landing fees go up a couple of quid a time, it can, very easily, be the difference between flying and not.

And in that case, you can charge whatever you like, it wont matter to me because the hobby I love, and the goal I have had since being knee high to a grasshopper will evaporate into thin air, along with the couple of grand that I've already spent on it. (You can imagine the nagging that will cause from 'er indoors)

I call it simple economics. Charge £30 to land and no-one will come. Charge £5 and they will beat a path to your door. Your overheads are roughly the same, but what would you sooner have, 100 visitors at a fiver, or 10 at £30?? Think about it!!
(Figures are used to prove the point and are not actual figures before some smart arse says something)

Rant over, thank you

[S-Works]

Not a lot of point in being able to fly if there are no airfields for you to visit.......

Aviation IS expensive, there are no two ways about it. You either have the money and fly or give up but for gods sake I wish people would quit bitchin about it!!!

:}

[High Wing Drifter]

Mono,

I am so pleased that someone else is prepared to put their head above the PPRuNe parapet and speak their mind. The last few times I did I was shot down so fast I didn't know what hit me.
Says he with an oftentimes half cocked smoking Purdy under his arm :p

[Monocock]

And what might you be suggesting HWD?

I do prefer to use a Browning though, they are easier to clean....

[S-Works]

Nah! Berretta EELL more classy.

[VP8]

Nah SPAS12 more shot for your Bucks

Any overtime I do goes into flying :ok:

VEEPS:sad:

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

It is interesting to note that most other leisure activities seem to be successfully regulating their participants' profile.

Translation into english requested. Please.

SSD

[J.A.F.O.]

Aviation IS expensive, there are no two ways about it. You either have the money and fly or give up Yeah, constructive, thanks.

[grahamj]

From my relatively recent observation of these forums, it seems to me that UK GA is full of dedicated, able, responsible individuals. Most of whom appear to take a realistic view of the differences in how GA works in most countries we know about around the world.


It would seem to be perfectly natural for this community of educated, and self motivated people to question, and challenge, the differences in training methods, pilot certification and taxation, that leads to the disparity in operating costs between not only the UK and USA, but also the UK and e.g. France.

There are many, possibly justifiable, reasons for UK GA to cost more than it does elsewhere, but imho it is not necessarily whinging to question why.

[IO540]

An interesting exercise is to write down a breakdown of the operating costs of a typical GA plane, and then look at which bits one can do something about.

Most of them one cannot do a lot about. Contrary to popular belief, the costs of UK regulation aren't big in the overall picture. Fuel is a big item but G Brown will never go after the miniscule GA vote and remove taxation from Avgas.

The financial case hangs on aircraft utilisation. If it is doing say 500hrs/year then the cost to the renter is going to be very different to when it's doing 200hrs/year.

Likewise if you can build a group of 30 people around a £25k C152, the cost to the individual can be far lower than any rental rate.

[singaporegirl]

If you wore Jimmy Choo shoes, Monocock, you might be able to reach the urinals at Kemble. ;)

[TonyR]

I think flying is now less expensive than it has ever been, I am not a big fan of landing fees as most airports could make more money by selling fuel & food if they would reduce the fees. but there are plenty of deals like Oxford at weekends ( buy fuel and dont pay fees)

Those who winge will winge anyway, sad thing is they put people off flying by making out it is more expensive than it really is

[Mike Cross]

Hows about you look at the purpose of the flight.

If I want to fly for my own pleasure that's a Private Flight yes? Not if I hire the aircraft or pay for an instructor to accompany me it's not. Do either of those and you require a Transport category C of A and the instructor needs a CPL and a Class 1.

Take driving lessons and you don't find the car having to be maintained differently or the instructor having to have a pUblic Service Vehicle licence and medical.

If the aircraft and instructor are safe with a Private Cat, a PPL/FI and a Class 2 they don't suddenly become unsafe simply because the instructor or the aircraft are being paid for.

CAA discovered that aircraft that had been released to service when not in compliance with their C of A (unauthorised mods, AD's not done etc). Instead of investigating why the engineers they licence were doing this they invented the Star Annual where the aircraft has to be taken to an M3 organisation every 3 years so someone else could check it over.

Any decent Quality System investigates and fixes the cause of the problems to prevent them recurring. It does not simply ignore the causes and treat the symptoms. (I speak as someone who runs an ISO 9000 registered company)

These are two examples of unnecessary costs that could be reduced without compromising safety simply by using a better approach.

(Lest I stand accused of slagging off engineers, I am willing to bet that the signing off happened because the information they needed to determine airworthiness was not readily available to them in a concise and easily assimilated form)

Mike

[Aim Far]

If I want to fly for my own pleasure that's a Private Flight yes? Not if I hire the aircraft or pay for an instructor to accompany me it's not. Do either of those and you require a Transport category C of A and the instructor needs a CPL and a Class 1.

Take driving lessons and you don't find the car having to be maintained differently or the instructor having to have a pUblic Service Vehicle licence and medical.



Must be late - I just had a vision of a naked Anna Friel with big feet telling us how she just doesn't get why that is.

[Timothy]

If I want to pop out with the kids for Sunday lunch I can go to The Propellor at Bembridge, AV8 at Kemble, the greasy spoon at Duxford, the clubhouse at Sherburn and so on.

I will compare quality with price and choose one.

If I look at Kemble and think "nice runway (but I don't need such a long one) good food but £33 landing fee puts me off...nah, I'll go to Bembridge" what do you want me to do? Just vote with my feet and stop going, or call them and discuss their fees?

I did the latter and they were genuinely interested to hear from me. They are experimenting with higher fees.

No doubt, like every other business, they need to maximise profit, and, as their overheads are so high and not very changeable they need to find the fee that is at the top of the elasticity curve.

If they do not get the feedback they could simply end up villified like Wolverhampton. Surely it is better to provide the feedback in a mutually supportive way?

If that's what you call whingeing, fine, that's up to you.

But one person's whingeing is another's expression of consumer will. You may think it's British to whinge, but maybe it's also British to just shuffle your feet slightly and not want to make a fuss and just, well, you know, just let's go somewhere else and hope nobody minds eh?

Timothy

[jbqc]

I have tried to talk to some of the more expensive airfields in the UK about fees but I often find the same attitude, "if you dont like it f... off"

I landed in Lydd a couple of years ago to pick up a mate, I bought 250 Ltrs fuel and still got charged £28 for landing a Mooney. When I complained I was more or less told not to bother comming back. I havent!

I work a lot in France, better welcome, better FBO type facilities & cheaper landings. And they are run by the FRENCH???

JB

[Timothy]

I have tried to talk to some of the more expensive airfields in the UK about fees but I often find the same attitude, "if you dont like it f... off"That was certainly Wolverhampton's view under the old regime, but I have found most places very willing to discuss, and very open to hearing opinion moderately expressed.

[englishal]

well we could all keep quiet and accept the ever increasing prices.....or, like the Americans who whinge everytime their petrol prices go up (and then they drop again) we could make the point that we think we're being ripped off.

Trouble is in the UK we EXPECT to be ripped off, and we are, and we accept it quietly, except for on Pprune. I know a bloke in the states who had his annual done, he went along and spent the day helping the mechanics do it. His bill was about $900......A far price in my opinion. No chance of that happening over here.

EA

[Maxflyer]

Does anyone know how an airfield operator calculates what a landing fee should be? ....short of using Arthur and set of balls B

[stiknruda]

I'm not sure if GA is full of whingers, I am quite sure that these fora seem to attract more whinging posts than laudatory ones.

How about a fly in for non-whinging ppruners who also enjoy some sport with a shotgun? Berettas and Brownings as welcome as English sidelocks.

Stik

[A and C]

It is not often on these pages that I read such utter uninformed rubbish .

$900 for an annual check ! ! !.

Thats £500 at the current rate and if the check only took a day then the labor rate was £ 62.50 / hour................just under double the UK labor rate.

I am quite happy to let owners help with the maintenance of there aircraft but it more often that not ends up with them mashing a few screw heads and the drilling and E-Zout of the screws means that it would have been quicker to do the job myself.

Now please tell me how an annual check was performed in a day ?.
It takes about 6 man hours to do a 50 hours to do without snaggs , so who can do an annual in a day ?.

If you can find this man will you please put him in contact with me as I can see my labor costs plummiting however I expect he is enhabiting the same fantasy world as you are if you think that this is a realistic price for all the work that is required to keep an aircraft airworthy.

I am sorry if my comments are a bit harsh for this forum but the aircraft mainenance in the UK is by and large very good value for money with the staff on the hangar floor paid about £10-12/hour
and the margins very tight for the engineering companys so I feel that the post that Englishal has made should be seen for what it is so that people new to aviation dont get the wrong idea about the true cost of proper maintenance.

[Ludwig]

Stik

Excellent idea, will you be hosting it?:)

[Windy Militant]

A slight aside, but over the last few years My PFA strut has held an annual fly in. We used to give a free burger to people who flew in and then charged a nominal sum for any subsequent drinks or burgers. Result lots of Burgers left over and a large loss. So we gave up flogging the burgers and gave them away free, but put an honesty box up. Result embarrassingly large profit. After covering the cost of the buns we donated the rest to the local hospice. So everybody happy and a good turn done as well.

Strange thing perceived value!

[Dan Winterland]

Used to be a member of a flying group that had it's own airfield. We charged a not very large landing fee, sold some fuel and made peanuts. Then our finance chap had a brainwave. Scrap landing fees, reduce the price of the fuel and serve Rombouts coffee. Everyone said 'won't work'. Result - profits quadrupled!

Mid you, you should have seen what we charged for the coffee

;)

[englishal]

It is not often on these pages that I read such utter uninformed rubbish
I quite agree A&C....

See this is the difference between the USA and the UK, in the USA GA doesn't have to be expensive, in the UK it seems that it does or people doen't believe it. You don't have to be JAR approved to be able to do up nuts, screws or even, god forbid use an EZ out....... Its not rocket science, though I'm sure JAR would have you believe it is. So long as your work is supervised by an FAA mech and they're happy to sign it off then why can't an owner help with their own annual? This wouldn't happen under JAR though, as jobs for the boys and all that.

Interestingly many mechanical failures or incidents tend to happen after an aircraft has come out from maintenance, so I think I'd rather do my own annual, or at least supervise the mechanic.

Same with boats, buy "Marine" Epoxy at £35 per tin, or car body filler for £15 per tin, same ****. Buy a boat in America for £10,000 and the same thing here costs £20,000, and there is only 3% import tax...so who gets the rest of the money?

We're used to being ripped off in the UK and accept it.....

EA

[FNG]

UK vs US comparisons need to be treated with some care. Nothing has an inherent price. The UK is small and densely populated, and properties in which to live or conduct businesses are expensive. Social costs are higher than in the US. These factors affect prices, but don't stop the relentless consumer pressure to have cheap everything, regardless of the implications for the environment, developing world working conditions etc. In the UK, goods of all kinds are currently tending to get cheaper, whilst services are tending to get more expensive.

[javelin]

I would agree that in general there seems to be more whinging in GA but it may be that it is just directed differently. Go to the States and they whinge about the Feds for all sorts of reasons, particularly now with increased security and closure of airspace just 'cos GW wants to go visit someone.

To add my 2 penneth, why do hundreds of US and Continental airfields survive with very small or in most cases in the States, no landing fees ? I have done quite a bit of GA flying over there and it amazes me to see these Mom & Pop airfields ticking over nicely, no landing fees, little diner, maintenance shop and a few aeroplanes tied down. Yet we go to some airfields in the UK, they snarl as you land, snatch a landing fee off you, won't discount it if you fuel or buy food and then snarl as you leave.

I think there is scope for a lot of airfields to look inwards, re evaluate what they provide and try be more customer service focussed - then trade increases, then they get busy.

[High Wing Drifter]

To add my 2 penneth, why do hundreds of US and Continental airfields survive with very small or in most cases in the States, no landing fees ? I have done quite a bit of GA flying over there and it amazes me to see these Mom & Pop airfields ticking over nicely, no landing fees, little diner, maintenance shop and a few aeroplanes tied down.
Because land in the US is so cheap?

[IO540]

englishal

Certainly somebody makes a lot of margin on the USA -> UK import of a lot of stuff, but it isn't (usually) the local maintenance shop. It is the importer, usually a sole agent, who brings the stuff in that makes the 1.5x markup.

If you have an N-reg plane, or to a lesser degree G-reg Private CofA one, you can buy parts mail order from the USA, and they are exactly the same parts which are 2x the price here and they come with the same original manufacturer's CofC. I pay 50% extra for fine-wire spark plugs, about £200 extra in all, as a result of having a G-reg on a Transport CofA. The CAA requirement for JAR145 documents on major items and 8130-3 on just about everything else, and training planes being on a Transport CofA, keeps this tight supply chain (a "cartel" in any other language) in business. The official UK importer is a JAR145 company, of course. This is just the tip of the rip-off iceberg.

A lot of the extra cost is unavoidable; e.g. 1 packet of 10 gaskets costing £50 gets shipped over by UPS who charge £50 for the carriage. That's a 2x price increase right away.

One cannot usefully compare UK rental pricing with USA pricing however. In this business, it depends so much on volume and in the UK the same volume just isn't there. Land costs are usually far lower there, there's a lot less pressure from NIMBYs and from property developers.

A lot of stuff in GA is grossly overpriced anyway; avionics is a prime example and that one is a result of most of it being made in small quantities by large firms with large fixed costs. They blame it on certification costs but that's bunk. But due to the age of the UK fleet, the market for avionics here is very small indeed which makes the situation even worse...

[A and C]

Another major factor is the weather , last month my aircraft did about 10% of the work that was booked !.

The fixed costs are the same if I fly one hour a month or one hundred with Florida Weather and USA fuel prices I could get quite close to the price per hour in the USA despite the extra cost of parts and the JAA .

As for the owner not helping with the maintenance , under JAA there is nothing to stop this happening except the attitude of the owners , most would not be seen dead working in the hangar after all if they did some of the maintenance it would give them one less thing to whinge about !.

[Flyin'Dutch']

Landing fees in the US are usually very low or non existent because the funding works completely different.

A lot of airfields are heavily subsidised by the FAA and the owner (usually the local 'council') has to provide the services the FAA pays for.

If they for instance try to reduce movements or opening times they get the hot breath of the feds in their respective necks.

So aviation gets money out of general taxation.

FD

[javelin]

IO540, your problem is with your maintenance person. I ran a PT C of A aircraft and got all my parts from Aircraft Spruce. My man accepted their invoice as the release - and why not - the parts were all new, or specific to type.

The more I see the exploits of some M3 organisations, the more I am happier to do my own maintenance and get it signed off.

[A and C]

If you have a British registered aircraft and are fitting parts that you can not trace back to a JAA Form One or an FAA form 8130-3 then you are breaking the law.

An Invoice is not enough this is fact and I dont see why you should slag off M3 companys that are keeping within the law when you are breaking it.

So far on this thread we have seen :

The person who thinks that an annual check can be done for $900 or £500.

A statment that the JAA ban you from working on your own aircraft under supervision.

And just to finnish off a person recomending fitting parts with out the paperwork that is required by law.

This just has to be a joke because these peope cant be that stupid............... or can they ?.

[IO540]

A and C

I agree re the documentation required. However I have seen a tendency to insist on JAR docs without mentioning the 8130-3, which prevents one purchasing an item directly from the USA and free-issuing it to the maintenance shop (i.e. cutting out the UK importer's margin plus the maintenance shop's trade discount profit margin). If one is ignorant of this, one can pay thousands extra for major items like a prop. One can get an 8130-3 for most items imported mail order from the USA, at costs varying from zero to say $100; the latter is exorbitant for a small item and this stops one buying many items directly from the USA.

I don't think you can generalise about customers' [in]ability to handle a screwdriver. I once got one maintenance place to replace a lot of screws they chewed up; the use of power screwdrivers without a torque limiter seems pretty universal, so the pozi screws get mangled pretty regularly. The people also don't seem to know how to pick up an existing female thread (turn the screw slowly backwards until it clicks, or at least turn it forwards gently); they just hold the screwdriver at max revs against the hole until eventually it goes in... And I've seen worse. With nearly all planes they work on being older than themselves, being in generally poor condition and often being booked in by stingy customers (flying schools), if one has something one wants to be looked after one needs to choose the maint shop carefully and stick with it. There are plenty of aircraft owners who are good enough engineers to easily do a lot of the work.

[A and C]

I have no problem in theory with customers working on aircraft that they own , in fact I would encourage it.

However after 20 years of fixing aircraft I have found that more often than not the customer is more hinderance that help and in the end puts the price up not down.

The big problem is that customer ego is such that they find it hard to except that they have F***ed up a job that a mear engineer could do , and this becomes a problem.
I once had to reject on quality grounds a job that a custormer had done , he went off in a rage to another engieering company who had the same type of problems with him.

May be I an guilty of generalising about customers but it is with some years of problems in the area , but what would you think the local BMW dealer would say if you said that you wanted to fix your car in his workshop......... I think you are likely to be told that it is not company policy.
I would try to be more accomodating but for reasons outlined above it is not always easy !.

[Zlin526]

Javelin,

Yet we go to some airfields in the UK, they snarl as you land, snatch a landing fee off you, won't discount it if you fuel or buy food and then snarl as you leave.

Why not vote with you feet and go elsewhere? I spent 4 years flying a Piper Cub and didnt pay a landing fee of over £5.00...because I chose where I wanted to go and restricted myself to small airfields and farmers strips..I still had a fantastic time doing so.

And why should airfields discount you for providing fuel? Often the fuel is provided by other companies who never get to see the landing fees....Same goes for the food. You dont get a discount for food at a garage because you have filled your tank with Petrol!

The only reason these airfields continue to charge exorbitant amounts is because people will continue to fly into them. Do bear in mind that if somebody is paying £100-200+ per hour, then £20 on top of that isnt going to hit them in the wallet that hard, and the top dollar airfields know this. This is why Biggin Hill, Oxford, Fairoaks etc charge high prices....Light GA visitors are the least of their worries; infact, maybe they even hike the prices up to deter the light GA traffic?

You dont see many Piper Cubs parked on the aprons of these airfields!

[javelin]

Right - Here goes then !

A & C - having owned 3 C of A aeroplanes, 1 on PT, the others on PVT and having seen the results of some M3 establishments, I have been utterly disgusted. On one, the majority of machine screws on the cowl had been replaced by self tappers, and a fabric repair was done with gaffa tape stitched on to existing fabric. The other one had items missed form regular inspections and an inverted valve that was seized solid despite a fresh C of A. The third had a similar number of self tappers used and other hideous botch ups.

On the other hand I have had 5 permit aeroplanes that have had on the whole, been maintained to a very good standard. A few oo er's here and there but no horror stories.

I wouldn't use an M3 establishment unless someone else was paying the bill. In my experience, they rip the average punter off with very average maintenance and bull which pervades the whole of UK GA.

Traceability is required to the manufacturer of the item - period. If the supplier can provide that to a court of inquiry, then I am happy 'cos I probably won't be there. Why should I pay £20 for a spark plug that I can get for £12 direct from the States - is there a market for forged REM40E's ? A part is a part is a part, provided it comes from a reputable supplier like Aircraft Spruce, Univair, Wicks, or similar.

IO 540 - totally agree about the screw thing but most of my problems have been when some gibbon of a mechanic has been let loose on an aeroplane I have bought.

As private pilots you have to realise that most, not all, maintenance establishments employ non licenced staff to do the work, the licenced engineer then signs off their work. That is exactly what I do with my aeroplanes, however I take care, time and pride in a job well done - I don't do it against a clock or for bonus.

To sum up, I believe that there are some outstanding engineers out there who have spent a long time and lots of money getting their licences. It is to them that I turn to for help, guidance, sign offs and I pay a fair amount for their expertise and time. It is a great shame that there are also a lot of people who have identified GA maintenance as an easy way to make money and do so under the false umbrella that aeroplanes are special.

Zlin - I do go to places where value is to be had - it just irritates me when other folk get scorched when they visit places where the service is poor and the charges are high. Sadly you sometimes end up somewhere different and get reminded that everywhere isn't little aeroplane friendly. In 2 years, my Champ has seen tarmac once - yes I got scorched for a £10 landing fee and won't return :sad:

[A and C]

Javelin

I have never seen workmanship of the type that you discribe come out of any of the reputable M3 companys that I have had anything to do with over the last 20 or so years.

However I have seen this sort of thing from one or two of the very cheap operators that most people in the business would have nothing to do with.

I once had an annual check to do on an aircraft that had been maintained by one of these people , if I remember correctly about 36 SB,s and a whole string of AD,s had never been done including 2 AD,s that I would put in the ultra safety critical list , one of these items the owner had a recipt for but no other paperwork.

The owner was delighted with the work untill presented with a bill IRO £3500 for the work He complaned refused to pay and when finaly court action was pending paid up.

The next time that maintenance was due he was back with the man who just rubs the aircraft with an oily rag and charges £800 for an annual dispite the fact that we had proved that he had been ripped off over a safety critical item .

I suspect that you fall into the same catorgory as the above owner , you know what good maintenance is but are just not prepaired to pay for it.

As for the parts that you are buying there is no reason not to go directly to the USA for them but you must get the supplier to provide an FAA form 8130-3 for them Remember that there may not be the market for bogus in the UK but in the USA the market is big enough to make fake aircraft bits a worthwile crime.
The 8130-3 form is your best protection from bogus parts and without it you are breaking the law.

Remember In this life you only get what you pay for , High quality maintenance is never cheap but in the long run it will save you money , but some people will never be able to see past the next maintenance bill and I can only shudder to think what price they put on there own lives and the lives of the people who fly in there aircraft.

[IO540]

A and C

However I have seen this sort of thing from one or two of the very cheap operators that most people in the business would have nothing to do with.

THAT is exactly the problem. If there are five JAR145 maintenance outfits within say 50 miles of each other, and two of them are bodgers, the other three will know exactly who the bodgers are. In fact probably all five of them will know :O

Similarly, if on a nearby airfield there is somebody running half a dozen C152s which he rents out to local flying schools and has done so for the last 10 years, he will also know who the bodgers are. (Which doesn't mean he won't use them, if they are cheaper, but that's a separate issue)

The problem starts when Joe Public has got his PPL and wants to fly, has realised that he cannot get the access and/or the standard of aircraft he wants by self fly hire, so he gets some do$h and buys something.

He doesn't know anybody "in the business". He probably asked his old instructors who the cowboys are. But obviously they never wanted him to buy a plane! And anyway they aren't usually responsible for maintenance. And, in GA, a lot of people slag off a lot of other people, especially when the weather is bad and business is thin.

So Joe Public ends up with a plane with duct tape, mangled screw heads, and you name it. A few years later he realises but by then he's paid the price.

I am writing this from first hand experience, BTW. Maintenance is a real minefield for a newcomer. But then so is aircraft ownership in general. Taking GA as a business, it doesn't carry its fair share of straight people.

Incidentally, do you have a reference for what paperwork is stipulated by the CAA? I know for a fact that some insurers' loss adjusters (who are LAME qualified) don't know about the 8130-3 option and end up paying loads extra for major parts.

[bluskis]

A&C

I find it hard to believe you 'only know of one or two' maintenance scoundrals.

My experience is that it is hard to find that number with a combination of competance and honesty,and its not a matter of cheap scating, in fact the more you pay the bigger fool you are taken for by many maintenance operations

Fortunately one is not limited to the UK for maintenance.

[A and C]

IO540

You will find the details of the use of aircraft parts from the USA in Airwothiness notice 17 para 4.4 its on the CAA website but I dont have the link.

Bluskis

I could tell you of two or three more that are suspect but not to this degree and not that I have had rock solid evidence of.
As to the bigger outfits they dont usualy produce bad work but on one occasion I stopped one of the biggest of them taking the wing off a PA34 for a cracked spar , the "crack" could be wiped off with a cloth it turned out to be a streak of grease thrown from a landing gear bearing !.

I do quite a bit of overseing maintenance for aircraft owners and i find that this works for both partys the owners get someone in there pay to keep the engineering companys honest and the engineers get someone who knows the business that they can talk to about the more difficult items.

[bluskis]

A&C

Should my present base let me down,which I do not anticipate,and should I brave the UK maintenance industry again your service makes a lot of sense, however my dissillusionment with the UK is probably irreprable, except in avionics where I have dealt satisfactorily with the same base for over 30 years.

[Keef]

Been there, done it <sigh>. The previous owner of our group aircraft used to fly it 100nm for maintenance, to an outfit that charged 20% less than the local one.

The group members were more picky, and when we started finding gross errors in the work "done", we asked questions.

The last "error" was so bad that we thought it hazarded the aircraft, and told the maint org so. We got a "p*$$ off" reply, so wrote it up and sent it to the CAA.

The firm closed down about three months later - whether through our complaint or others, we know not.

We're happy with the one we use now, we have a "good working relationship", and they know us and the aircraft. More to the point, whenever any major part needs replacing, I get a call to go to have a look. Sometimes they'll say "It's probably good for another 50 hours", sometimes not. But we trust each other.

How did we find that particular firm? Asked all the other groups on the field. Same way I found out that Naples Air Center is the place to go to do an FAA IR - lots of good recommendations, maybe a few minor niggles, but no horror stories...

...apart from the £14,000 bill for a C of A five years ago. But the prop was past it, and those two pots did need replacing.