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Course or guide for new aircraft owners?

I feel like I learn something really important on a nearly daily basis regarding aircraft ownership, and I’m wondering if there are any good courses or guides for new owners geared toward EASA. Things like documentation requirements, maintenance options, AMPs, ARCs, annual/other inspections, etc. I’ve seen such things online for FAA-land but not for EASA. I think of myself as a pretty intelligent guy who ought to be able to manage an asset like a small airplane, but current information on how to do so seems elusive and something that’s just passed from one owner to another (or worse, learned from the school of hard knocks…). Any direction on this would be helpful, as I don’t even know if what I have with my AMP is legal/compliant for instance.

Last Edited by dutch_flyer at 24 Jun 14:57
EHRD, Netherlands

Regarding maintenance and specifically Pt. ML, check AOPA Germany.

always learning
LO__, Austria

One of the big problems in GA is that once you are outside the school or “club” system, you are on your own. And inside the system they don’t want you to progress too much, usually.

So what can one do to get clued-up?

There are lots of web resources but you have to do a lot of reading, and as you gradually educate yourself you learn to sort out the good stuff from the junk.

This steep learning curve is one big reason why most new pilots never progress, and most chuck it all in within a year or two.

This was one of the reasons why I started my site almost 20 years ago, and why EuroGA started in 2012. Well, one of the big pushes behind EuroGA was that nearly all the other social media communities became pretty aggressive and anybody asking a decent question would get beaten up and then the whole thread would descend into one big pub fight__. EuroGA is the only international pilot forum in Europe; all the others are domestic and really inward-looking.

When I started flying in 2000 I started on the internet as it then was – Usenet! It was really good and I learnt vastly more reading that than in the school environment. Then I learnt a lot from other owners. Generally, owners tend to be big stores of knowledge, not found anywhere else. It is a challenge to get them to pass this on, however

The European situation is also more complex. The extent to which EASA concessions can be applied is heavily dependent on airfield / maintenance company politics. If you search here for “part-ml” (with the quotes, otherwise you get results for “part” or “ml”) you find threads like this and this where different people disagree quite substantially on what the reality is! In some countries, UK included, very few people are on an SDMP for example – again due to airfield politics / revenue generation.

A big reason for all this is that most businesses in European GA are not making a lot of money so there is constant pressure to screw the customer if possible and disregard any of the recent concessions from EASA (which it has to be said EASA brought in after they screwed the maintenance scene really badly, post-2003, so now everybody thinks they are the great saviour of GA ). Overall things are heading in the right direction, but held back by … airfield politics, and less directly by availability of flexible maintenance companies.

It’s a rather bad state of affairs but if you get organised it can work well. The #1 job is to make sure your “ground situation” is well sorted. Flying is the easy part

I suggest posting questions here If somebody writes a load of garbage here, it is soon corrected

I don’t know why AOPA Germany would know about this… I know the variations in airfield politics are just as big in Germany, and the OP is in NL.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Perhaps I am just new or it’s different here, but I’ve not noticed a lot of politics regarding maintenance specifically. I’ve been advised against CAMO three times by shops I’ve contacted, and was offered a pre-filled AMP by one of them. My only gripe there has been that I take the plane in for something and it comes out with a loose wire every time—and that I lose half a day on both ends of drop off and pickup.

Really just an overview of the basics would be helpful, even if it’s just a starting point. The forum is great for advice on specifics, but it’s the overview that’s missing. If it doesn’t exist I am tempted to start compiling something on my own and get some help with content. I find it strange that people would not want to share, as I am the opposite.

EHRD, Netherlands

Someone, or maybe a group of people with expertise on different areas, should write a book on the subject.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

dublinpilot wrote:


Someone, or maybe a group of people with expertise on different areas, should write a book on the subject

I would be happy to help with such a project, as I’ve both written and edited books. Would need some help with content but would be happy to turn it into clean English…

EHRD, Netherlands

In part type support (American Bonanza Society, Piper Owners) is a great source of information, with, in the case of the ABS, high quality technical support to members. ABS also has an excellent pre buy checklist which could be used to set a standard for pre buys on other types.

In the USA it is quite customary for sellers to supply links to airframe and power plant logbooks which allows buyers to form a judgment on how an aircraft has been maintained over time. In Europe different countries seem to have different approaches to maintenance records, which presumably require local and type expertise to navigate.

I can’t comment on the quality of pre buys in Europe, but might venture they may be less thorough than what is expected in the USA.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

I don’t know why AOPA Germany would know about this… I know the variations in airfield politics are just as big in Germany, and the OP is in NL.

What @Snoopy is referring to is this course https://aufwind.aero/eu-maintenance/ which is hosted by @mh and, although registration is done via AOPA Germany, is by no means concerned with airfield politics in Germany. In fact I think it pretty much caters to what the OP is looking for. I don’t know if there will be any English language sessions in the near future – I’m sure Malte can comment.

Hungriger Wolf (EDHF), Germany

That chap’s business promotion was discussed in the above linked thread, indeed Nice stuff like this. A subsequent post of MH was deleted due to being highly offensive (a clear breach of the Guidelines here). I wish some people contributed more to the forum, rather than (or as well as – that is allowed) just promoted their courses, while generating posts which are borderline-acceptable, and basically spitting in our soup. But, this is how GA is in some quarters, and so it goes, round and round… and same people pop up every time.

Understanding Part-ML is indeed a challenge. Even finding the regs is something very few have ever managed, partly due to so many versions being online concurrently, and partly due to it being very hard to know which one applies to which situation. But, as I wrote earlier, even if you were a King of the regs, you would not be able to apply them unless you are very lucky on the way your ground situation is sorted. One chap here has a good site here although I still find the application very difficult… well it’s no different to ISO EN CE etc standards really… as the old joke goes, the great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

I wish some people contributed more to the forum, rather than (or as well as – that is allowed) just promoted their courses

I’m not sure I follow – mh has contributed to the forum for more than 8 years as a quick search reveals and certainly not “just promoted courses” – but anyway.

Is it within the guidelines if I, as a new owner since last year and participant of the course testify that I found it quite valuable?

Hungriger Wolf (EDHF), Germany
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