STEC A/P maintenance

[WorkingHard]

Hi there
Could anyone please recommend a shop that is known to be good with STEC A/P please? A bit of routine maintenance and tuning is needed.

Many thanks

[IO540]

I get asked this kind of question by a lot of pilots in the UK, who have been around the usual shops and either got very poor service or the shop could not fix it.

Very few avionics people in the UK are electronics engineers.

Far better to go to America.

If you email me, I can send you some PDFs from U.S. pilot forums where various recommendations are found, and I know people who have found this very helpful.

However if you need work done in situ, then you have to get somebody in the UK.

[wsmempson]

I had an S-Tec 30 in my last aircraft - it had been installed by Tatenhill, so I suppose that they must be able to service these?

Peter is right though for the older autopilots - my KFC 200 went back to a well known avionics supplier, who then mailed it on to a specialist in the USA for repair. I went down that route, rather than going direct, so that the repair came with the right paperwork...!

[IO540]

Yeah, the price of being on EASA-reg

An 8130-3 form is not usable with a secondhand part, even if the secondhand part has been yours and yours alone since it was new

So you have to "process" the US-serviced part through an EASA-145 company, which "inspects" it tests it and then spends £0.0000001's worth of laser printer toner to print off a fresh EASA-1 form. Their hefty charge goes towards their mandatory contribution to the UK CAA pension fund.

Of course I would never suggest doing anything off the books Paperwork always comes before safety, and quite right too.

[wigglyamp]

8130

An FAA 8130-3 is acceptable for a second-hand or repaired part as long as it's issued by a repair station that has EASA foreign repair station authorisation. Many US avionic shops (SE Aerospace etc) issue theses acceptable 8130s so you don't pay to put the part through a UK shop to get the right paperwork.

For in-situ S-Tec work, Gama Engineering at Fairoaks, IAE at Cranfield and Tatenhill Aviaition can all do this sort of work.

[IO540]

An FAA 8130-3 is acceptable for a second-hand or repaired part as long as it's issued by a repair station that has EASA foreign repair station authorisation

Very true; I forgot to mention this.

That is how the ridiculous engine overhaul situation (of some years ago) was solved, when the only place where some engines could be overhauled was in the USA, but the company there did not have EASA approval. The overhauled engine was technically secondhand

However I am not sure if any of the U.S. specialist autopilot repair shops are EASA approved and can thus do a dual release 8130-3.

Can't Lees Avionics do STEC work?

[wigglyamp]

Autopilot Central can do dual release, as can MidContinent Instruments, Southeast Aerospace and many others.

Lees Avionics are now known as Gama Engineering (re-named on September 12) and yes, they can do S-Tec work as well.