100 Hourly
 

A question for any LAME's or other owners out there please. I own a share in a Piper Archer 2 that is due for it's 100hrly service. What would be considered a fair time in hours labour for this inspection? ie removal of covers,seats etc and to carry out the inspection then put it all back? I realise any faults found that need rectification is extra hours, but I am interested in only the inpection part of the exercise. Thanks in advance.

What was the carefully researched estimate you had before you ponied up your share? :hmm:

Tin ........pretty good question!

The next good one is what was your bill ?

I would guess $1500-3000 and if many things are due.......:ouch: :ooh:

Sorry you seem to misunderstand the question. I have no issue with any other owner or the dollars at the end of the day as this can be worked out depending on the hourly rate. What I am trying to work out is what allowance we should budget for a 100hrly. So the amount of hours it would normally take to do the inspection. Not counting any faults/wear etc that may or may not be required.

Um...forgive me but, you bought a plane and are now figuring out how much it gonna cost?
You need anything else? :uhoh:

better late than never.

Yup, you're a bit late figuring that one out, or you're simply loaded and don't really care (good on ya in that case, but get a share in a PC-12, man! :}).

It's around twenty hours minimum for the inspection on an Archer. This figure alone doesn't tell you much, though, because depending on which state the machine is in when it goes into the workshop, and very much depending on how it's been used and by whom, the labour cost of fixing stuff could be a multiple of that, not to speak of parts.

Let me illustrate: I bought a well known Archer II, i.e. usage and maintenance history well known and documented, and my LAME spent 30 hours on a combined pre-purchase/100 hourly; we took the tanks out to check the wings properly for corrosion which adds a few extra hours, plus went at it without haste, so we could have probably done it in 20 if we had really wanted to, but I for one enjoyed the process enough to not sit there with a stop watch all the time, and I would allege you get better value out of the LAME that way too. (Quick tangent: The pre-purchase should be of the breadth and depth of a 100 hourly so you might just as well pay a few bucks more and get a clean fresh MR as part of the purchase. Not that hard to organise either. Knowing what work the machine will need of course helps greatly in negotiating the right purchase price. End tangent.)

With work to make the machine technically near perfect, the LAME spent another just over 40 hours (double the amount to include parts as a rough guide), plus just north of 30 hours for the avionics guys to bring up to speed various items that the previous owner that dropped the ball on. I did well, I think, I now have an aeroplane in technically very good condition for a combined purchase/fix-up price that is not above market value, I'd probably say around 20-30% below actually.

As I know that most things that needed fixing are done, I am pretty sure the next 100 hourlies will not throw up too many surprises (there are always some and stuff does break, these hulls are a few decades old), but once you know what you have you can pretty much budget and to a degree control costs going forward.

If you need more info, feel free to post or PM, I have done a fair bit of research into the cost of ownership of my Archer and am happy to share my knowledge. :)

Ah yeah, and while we're at it, I used to pay 65 bucks net for a good (small organisation) LAME down south, now in my new life in QLD I am paying 75 to a slightly larger organisation, are there people in SEQLD who run quality oriented small LAME shops with low overheads? Always happy to support a start-up or smaller independent operator! :ok:

Depends too on how many hours are on it.

It it new or an old ****ebox?

Personally I find 20 hours quite an amazingly large figure (I'm not saying I don't agree with it though).

So for every 10 hours, 2 hours more are required for maintenance minimum!

Better than the stealth bombers and some other military types etc, they can require 100 hours or more maintenance for every hour in the air!

I've owned a couple of Archers and a Dakota. Fine aircraft. How long a 100hrly will take depends on the plane and who's doing it. My 100hrlys varied between $1500 and $11,000. Inspection part should not be more than 14 hours - but costs will vary according to what they find peeping into those little holes with their torches and mirrors on sticks. Then if they decide to take the tanks out (the only way to see parts of the spar) or drop a wing off for a wingwalk or something.. start taking the proverbial sharp intake of breath and thinking extra days not hours.

One thing I have found is that 100hrlys on a PA28 are almost always a bit less than on a Cessna....

100 hourly
 

Our aero club C172 just got done last week. $2000.
20.5 man hours (team effort) in at 0800, out the door at 1700, one day - as always. It is extremely well maintained in country Vic.
A handful of small parts (nuts/bolts/seals) at prices cheaper than the current U.S. price, plus some brake work, a tyre change, and a few other incidentals.
Yes, our first bill years ago there was a biggie, fixing all the stuff that had been missed by previous LAMEs. Now it's cruising on easy street.

TB5

You previously got it very cheap, now you're getting it cheap.

LAME rates are generally around $85/hour, which is also cheap compared to luxury car dealers, charging up to $125/hour for "specialist" labour.

Normally it would be 18hrs inspection minimum (and depending on various mods or interior installed. Plus 2 hours for job raising, logbook research & completion and work-pack orgainising. ... So 20 hours is a reasonable figure.

Sometimes a siezed screw, bad cowlings, etc all make an extra half hour hour inevitable, but thats life - they are working machines.

Cheers, KP

Yeah right... until you take it along to another LAME, then guess what will happen.:ouch::ouch:

My local Toyota dealer charged me $110 per hour for labour, and I bet some pimply 17 year old apprentice did all the work. :ouch:

Our maintenance facility now charges the same and have no complaints from any customers. (our apprentices arent that pimply :ok:)

LAME rates less than the automotive industry, at a minimum, is yet another example of how bad aviation is at pricing it's services. :(

I call it the 'Those magnificent men in their flying machines' syndrome.

Thanks to all those who replied with factual, informed information. So I will put a 100hrly for an archer down at 16hrs (give or take 3 or 4hrs.) All I need it for is my accounts system, as the aircraft is used for 50% business and need to itemise all expenditure. EG fixed costs; parking fees, insurance etc. Recurring maintenance ; 100hrly,50hrly,instrument calibration etc, Non recurring maintenance; repairs,wear and tear, etc. to keep the accountant happy.
Amazing though isn't it. As soon as a question is asked the dimwits of prune are the first to respond with nothing of any importance to say or it appears any knowledge of the subject let alone understanding the question to start with.:ugh:

Sure, maybe. But did your $120,000 Toyota sit out in the grass for 3 weeks before they could get around to it because they have so many big important customers? Did some pimply apprentice leave the master switch on and so you arrive to pick it up with a flat battery? Did you get treated with honesty courtesy and respect by folk who did what they said were going to do in the time they said it would take? Did you find clean, well organised premises? Did it come back with some paperwork that says you cannot use your car's full capability until you return because they did not quite organise part of the service? How many things went wrong as a result of your last Toyoto service?

C'mon, you get what you pay for - and in many cases that's not much more a bunch of scruffy disorganised back yard amateurs. Cheap they may be - professional they aint.

and people ask me why im buying a Jabiru J230 over a Cherokee!

Mostlytossas writes:

"As soon as a question is asked the dimwits of prune are the first to respond with nothing of any importance to say"


Easy solution for next time, don't come back!

The 100 hourly should take about 16 to 20 hours. 50 hourly about 2 hours. Add avionics check and AD another 5 hours. So 1 hour of labour for every 4 hours in the air.
Your Toyota dealer does a service for 2 or 3 hours not 25. I bet he wishes he could get 25 hours of labour charge per car. If you charged $125 an hour labour the industry would die because in the real world who is going to private hire a PA28 archer at around $400 an hour which is what you would have to charge.
LAME always tell you how cheap they are and how much a car dealer charges but I tell them you find the customers to pay the extra and I will pay you more. They then walk to the tea room and complain about pilots and aircraft owners

Well you may as well just put down 20 hours up front, so your expenses you are calculating for allow for a bit of overbudget.

Also, any monies set aside for the avionics inspection if you are in IFR category.