The Journey to Master Maintenance

[17031]

A client and friend bought a plane (a late model Cirrus) a couple years ago and was hurting from the cost of the two annuals he's been through. I can feel his pain. I shared my learnings with him and after finishing the email I thought I might post it here in case someone else might learn from my problems. I have always received great feedback from fellow Comanche owners and would appreciate any feedback anyone may have on my learnings below. So without further ado following is the maintenance related exerpt from the email:

"I was talking to the owner of the shop I use for my plane and during that discussion I asked him about his experience with Cirrus. He said that it was a good reliable plane and that annuals may typically run a few thousand. I mentioned that I knew someone that had spent a good deal more and his response was interesting and I thought I would pass it along. There can be more than one check list for an annual, one approved by the FAA and the other that comes from the manufacturer. He thought that the annual check list that comes from Cirrus seemed to him to be much more involved, thus more expensive than the one approved by the FAA. Still, that wouldn’t make up for what you were experiencing.

I’m going on 5 years with my Comanche. I had a lot of things to learn about using the plane, most of which I was able to figure out the first year. Maintenance was a different matter. It has been only recently that I can say that the light at the end of the tunnel is in plain view now. Below are a few bullet points I have learned. It’s been an expensive learning process but this is where I’m at right now;

• Trust and verify. I had to become very knowledgeable about the Comanche and its specific characteristics. Maintenance shops work on far too many different makes to become very good at any of them (in spite of what they might say). Don’t necessarily believe what you are told, check it out.
• I joined the Comanche Society and found them to be very valuable. Their support has been crucial through the whole process. I can’t express this enough. Most makes have such organizations.
• I have an issue with an airfoil and ran into a dead end until I finally called the factory (Piper). They have people whose job it is to handle questions from people like me. Now, I will call them anytime a design related issue comes up.
• The maintenance shops mark up parts by a factor of 2x or 3x. Shocking but true. For my Comanche I have been putting together a list of sources for parts. These are sources that specialize in Comanche components. The shops have their sources that supply parts but what I have found is that they cannot take the time to fish around for sources so they have only a few places they buy everything from. This causes the parts to go through one more stage of mark ups. Soon I will be ordering my own (Comanche specific) parts for the shop. (By the way, it is surprising how much you can find on eBay.)
• Except for minor problems no work gets started until I receive an estimate, written. That estimate is questioned until I am satisfied that they know what they are doing and nothing is padded.
• Every “squawk” they find during the inspection gets reviewed, item by item, by me before any work starts. I make them split out the airworthy issues from the “nice to fix issues” or “should be fixed”, then I decide what gets done and how it gets done. Also, I assume nothing when it comes to what is deemed an “airworthy” issue, I make them justify it. None of this “because I say so” crap.
• By the way, any time you hear the word “should”, grab hold of your wallet.
• During the first few annuals I was told that they need to fix as they go, that it would be much less expensive…BULL. My instructions now are that only the inspection is authorized. No work is to be done until the inspection is complete, the airworthiness squawks have been identified, and estimates developed for each item. I then go down the list and check off those that have my approval.
• Shortly after the annual, I do a thorough preflight inspection and perform a brief test flight. So far, there has been something that needed to be addressed. It takes a flight or two to get everything back to normal.
• The magic phrase. There is a very short and simple to understand phrase that I pull out when all else fails and it goes something like this, “…look, I’m the one in this plane zooming through the sky at 10,000 feet if something goes wrong…not you, so…”. The FAA makes you, the pilot, responsible to determine the airworthiness of the plane, not the mechanic. Sometimes I find the mechanic needs to be reminded of this.
• My Comanche is not a car. I no longer use the automobile as an analogy in any way. Strange as it may seem, this took me a while to learn.
• My mechanic is my partner. This represents a dramatic change in my view of the shop. The shop, I have learned, is not a place to take the plane when sometime is wrong, rather it is a place to take the plane to fix something that will go wrong BEFORE it goes wrong. This takes team work. I’m still working this.
• Mechanics are not dishonest nor incompetent, just human.

So these are my leanings so far and I hope some of this might be helpful to you. For business and family reasons I feel I need to keep the plane and make it work so I’m willing to slug it out. Fortunately, there is progress however slow and painful."

[N3322G]

Also familiar with this painful process. Thank goodness I found Clifton.

[William Mattson]

Those are all very good points. Last year was cheap, this year not nearly so.

I am undergoing my second annual at the moment. This one will be quite expensive. Tail AD and a cracked trunnion going to S&B for repair. The rest is pretty normal, plus I put in a new alternator and the K2U wing root kit. The down time can be tough (not expecting cracked trunnion). I will add I am becoming better at procuring parts and doing owner maintenance.

I am starting my own parts collection and buy the parts I think I might need later to have on hand. I bought the opposite trunnion on ebay to have it sent to S&B which will save me money and 2-3 weeks if I need it. If the normal suppliers run out it can take time to get a part i.e. more down time.

[MULEFLY]

@17031

I strongly disagree with one point.... I have been personally involved with the ownership and managment of 3 GA maintenance facilities. The market will not bear 2X and 3X mark up on parts. Bungess, sparkplugs, tires, inner tubes, filters, batteries, etc... no more than 15%. Overall, most shops will not achieve an overall average greater than about 12% margin on parts. The only opportunity for a shop to make a meaningful markup is on labor. But out of that markup, comes hanger rent, taxes, building maintenance and insurance... these 4 items can run $100K per year for a small shop that is only about 100,000 sq. ft. I know of one facility that figures that before they have opened the door in the morning, they have spent $900 for that day. If they have a $50 per hour markup on labor, they have to bill 18 hours that day just to cover the fixed expenses.

I realize that flying and maintenance is expensive... but servicing GA is a high risk/low profit industry. We need these shops to remain viable and available. With very rare exceptions, as a group, they are not price gouging scoundrels.

All the best!
Jim

[17031]

Thanks for this input. To clarify, I did not dream up the mark up I stated. There were several transactions where I just happened to know the price I would have paid had I bought direct myself. In each instance, they were components specific to the Comanche, e.g. carpet, gas cap, etc. This is a fact. I admit I should not have generalized, nor should I have infered all shops do this. Nonetheless, it happened. If I had to reduce my entry to one sentence it would be this; the Pilot, not the mechanic, the Pilot is responsible for the airworthiness of the plane...a responsibilty to be taken seriously.

The irony here is that I consult with companies on how to properly maintain their equipment. There is a formal process (TPM) to acomplish this that has been around for a very long time. I haven't been applying that knowledge to my own situation. This will change.

Any reader that has taken all this as critisism of mechanics has totaly missed the point. If anything is being critisized, it is my behavior and attitude in the past.

[Kristin Winter]

A lot depends on the part and where it was sourced. The manufacturers add a huge market on off the shelf parts. Some mechanics are not comfortable sourcing the part by its original manufacturer's part number. The FAA has made provisions for that in AC 23-27 where it says: (2) You may substitute parts where a direct substitute for a part/material can be found
under manufacturer part number, military specification, or other recognized standard, such as the
SAE.

When I was running an FBO back in the 80's, we quit stocking things like spark plugs, etc. because San-Val, Chief, etc. were selling them at less than my cost through the usual aircraft parts distributors. Even if I ordered through one of the Trade-A-Plane advertisers, owners would scream bloody murder if I marked them up 25%. That is an airport that no longer has an FBO.

I do agree that more than a 35% or so mark up is excessive, in most cases. A bit depends on whether they were billing for the time to find and order the part. Chasing parts is time consuming if it isn't a standard item.