Calling PA28 or similar A/C owners!

[EchoSierra]

Apologies if this is in the wrong forum, but I thought it the best place to find the answer i'm looking for.

I'm involved in a group revolving around a PA28 whose agreement states that we shouldn't go over 150 hours a year - due to the cost of the 150 hour check compared to the 50.

Now we are looking at the possibility of removing the restriction and changing the groups agreement, so my question is: How much (on average) does a 150 hour check cost on a PA28 or similar aircraft? I appreciate this of course varies with anything out of the ordinary that may pop up. Is the 150 hour check a completely different animal than the 50, a "mini annual" as the group call it?

Appreciate any replies, examples of costs would be great too.

ES

[Cusco]

The worst case scenario is if you do allow to go over 150 hours but then for various/weather reasons you only do another ten or so hours when the annual /ARC crops up.

150 is effectively a mini-annual but if an annual follows shortly after then engineer can 'make allowances' i.e. might not drain 10 hour old oil etc.(that's not a good example).

We haven't exceeded 150 hrs in our arrow for many years but from (distant) memory the 150 hr was something like £2 K.

Problem is with ageing a/c usually other 'stuff' needs doing at the same time: We've just had a £5.6K annual but radio stuff and a Piper SB needed doing: I've forgotten what a 'straight' annual costs.....

If you're gonna exceed 150, make sure you do it in style and add 50hrs.In removing the 150hr 'block' you might have to get members to agree to a certain number of extra hours to make it worthwhile.

Cusco

[smarthawke]

If you work on 1.5 times the cost of a 50 Hour Check, then you should be pretty close (obviously dependent on parts that are required).

As for the content, have a look through the required scheduled maintenance tasks in CAA/LAMP for 50, 150 and Annual inspections (Section 6):

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP766.pdf

[A and C]

In terms of maintenance cost per flying hour the stop points are 150 or 300 hours, as said above the 150 hour check is not far short of an annual check and the annual check resets the check cycle.

[ChickenHouse]

I don't know the PA28, but I know from the C172 that you don't need to do the parts related to the 100h at annual, if the last 100h check was within the last year after annual - the only rule is "at least one 100h check minimum per year", not necessarily at annual. Is the PA28 that different?

[A and C]

It depends on the maintaince schedule you have, you are talking about the manufactures schedule, this is the normal way to go about things.

In this case the aircraft I registered in the UK and so is on the UK CAA Light Aircraft Maintainence Program ( LAMP ). This requires a program of 50, 50, 150 & annual checks rather than 100 & annual checks.

The LAMP program has been deemed EASA non- compliant and so eventually should disappear in favour of the manufactures program ( all Diamond aircraft should be on this now ) but I don't see LAMP disappearing any time soon.

[Maoraigh1]

If you're at 150 hours, and 10 months, consider an early annual - there's no limit on that. You just lose some of the months you payed for.

[ChickenHouse]

@ A and C: thank you, I was not aware of the very British LAMP speciality.