Is the Avionics business full of sharks and, if so, why, despite labour rates so much lower than your BMW dealer?

I have interacted with many UK avionics firms and wigglyamp was the only installer who actually understood the interconnections. The rest were just wiremen. As a result of the “interaction” I did not go on to use most of them.

But he is now mostly retired.

I have not used A&C’s company though.

I deliberately avoid mentioning the company for a number of reasons, one of them being I can offer a personal opinion rather than an opinion constrained by commercial restrictions.

This is a fair point. I have changed the Guidelines thus:

We want to encourage businesses to participate – because a lot of the time they are the only ones who might have answers. The only conditions are that it is not done covertly (e.g. pretending to be a customer of the firm) and that the poster does genuinely participate in the forum generally.

A_and_C wrote:

I know of one U.K. Avionic installer that all the Avionic certifying staff are pilots and the certification of IFR avionics is limited to those who also have an IFR pilot qualification

If that was ever a requirement then you’d instantly shut down all airlines as well as GA! Despite being a mere VFR PPL-holder, I’ve been certifying IFR avionics from light singles, helicopters and heavy airliners for over 40 years without any thought that I’m under-qualified or lacking in the required system knowledge. It’s experience that’s key – not just a qualification.

You can comment. From our guidelines:

We want to encourage businesses to participate – because a lot of the time they are the only ones who might have answers. The only conditions are that it is done under the company’s full name and that the poster does genuinely participate in the forum generally. Conversely we do not allow people to promote their company’s products or services while appearing to be mere users; this is misleading and undermines the integrity of the forum.

The problem we’ve had over the years is that avionics installers didn’t want to play by those rules. They aren’t onerous, and if it was me I would jump at the opportunity.

Your shop, presumably

That’s excellent.

Peter wrote:

However – perhaps inadvertently when trying to make the usual contrarian point to my post

I was not!

– you have hit the nail right on the head:

That was my point, yes!

Sure it is. Lots of reasons… but the end result is the same.

However – perhaps inadvertently when trying to make the usual contrarian point to my post – you have hit the nail right on the head:

We expect (well, I expect) people who purport to be specialists in their trade – “professionals” – to communicate professionally yet many do not? Why not? This is a pretty central topic, isn’t it?

If I get a guy to come and fix my electric garage door, I expect to get somebody who knows about garage doors, available models, and who communicates adequately in writing. Why in writing? Because one who does everything by phone is very likely at best incompetent and more likely a crook.

So why do so many avionics people – people who we expect to know more than how to use a spanner – not communicate professionally? Bad comms is almost certainly going to be tied to bad work, because if you have the IQ necessary to do avionics, you must have the literacy to communicate. So if you can’t communicate, you are not capable of installing avionics!

I don’t know the full extent of what went so badly wrong with that “how to lose your plane” case but I do know quite a bit, and it looks like the comms were done largely with Whatsapp one-liners. That should have rung big alarm bells with the customer. But it didn’t. Why not? A big chunk of why that job went badly wrong lies right there. Upon “lost comms” the customer did eventually drive down (11hrs) and found the panel had been cut up for the new avionics, for which there was no STC! But one of the things you can do with Whatsapp rather easily is send photos!

So we come back to my point #1: use a firm nearby. Why doesn’t everybody? Possible reasons:

• no firm nearby (that’s true for most of Europe’s geographical extent)
• all nearby firms have a bad reputation
• one firm has a fanatical following in your own country, or in your type-specific community, so everybody goes there (and they behave accordingly arrogantly)
• you have had disputes with nearby firms and they have blacklisted you
• a firm initially chosen tried to do something excessive (probably revenue-generation stuff) and when you pointed them to a forum discussion proving them wrong, they told you to f-off and told you to never contact them again
• some version of above

Peter wrote:

using a firm whose comms are semi-illiterate or suspicious – quite common e.g. you send them 4 questions and they reply to 3 of them, and one of the replies is ambiguous and results in 2 more questions, and then the whole thing degenerates

That particular issue is by no means limited to avionics shops. It is pervasive in society.