I guess the maintenance industry is full of sharks who rip people off at the first chance, but what I can’t understand is how the average shop Labour rate is about 30% of that at a BMW dealership and how so few people aspire to getting an aircraft maintenance licence to take advantage of the goldmine that is spoken about on this thread.
In my experience the trouble starts when the panel is opened up and it is found that the thirty year old wiring is no longer fit to fly, the previous installation has been done in a way that makes fitting the new kit imposable without substantial panel rework and the removal of the panel uncovers substantial corrosion resulting from water soaked soundproofing.
All of this can’t be ignored by those who release the aircraft to service and so the price goes up and the costumer tells all his mates how the maintenance company is holding him to ransom.
I use an avionics shop which always gives two estimates before starting a job. One is the discussed and intended work to be done, labelled ‘best guess’ and the second is a ‘what if all we think of now goes South’. The real case is usually in between, but I have seen one of my orders falling below South.
Why is this happening frequently seems easy. We operate a very old on average fleet, few in numbers, with lots of tinkering instead of correct maintenance over the years – low numbers, high variability, decades of abuse and you expect a solid estimate for avionics work?
Well there are certainly sharks in it.
Your aircraft has a single comm replaced with an 8.33mhz unit. Its in your hanger and you get billed 3 days labour (2400 pounds) yet when you look at the webcam you see that it only took 3 hours (300 pounds).
Everyone says take the guy to the small claims court but you can’t because there isn’t anyone else.
A shout out for AeroFab at Thruxton, @wigglyamp kindly recommended them. Unfortunately they are not able to carry out work for N-reg. A colleague used them for major brain surgery (Arrow 2 going full glass and new autopilot) and was very pleased.
Bathman
I can think of an Avionic shop who are A Becker, Garmin & Trig dealer not 15 minutes flying east of you who you could have used so there is no excuse there is no one else.
Yes. I got that one wrong.
It is not that people which know avionics are not sought after, quite the opposite. My shop has been constantly on the lookout but what I hear is that lots of people they could consider prefer to work in an airliner-oriented shop. 9-5 and fringe benefits lure.
I think @A_and_C, you have gotten the main problem reckognized pretty well.
If you open up a BMW, all of them of one series are more or less the same. The only difference may be different radio systems built in, but that is one to two boxes. So thy can fix, exchange, do stuff pretty much of the shelf within a forthnight or so if you’re really unlucky.
The better comparison would be an outfit who only caters to old timer cars or special vehicles, where you got people working who savour this kind of challenge. There on the other hand, you see very similar things happen. “good looking” cars go into a shop and, once open, turn out into month long projects.
Our airplanes are way different to the average BMW car. They are kind of Pandora boxes which, once opened, will have wiring whom only the long deceased guy who originally did it know how it works (if he remembers) and which offers traps beyond any expectation. Not many shops today have got mechanics and electronic guys like the folks up at Buffalo, who live and breathe old airplanes, and even those who do, the moment stuff goes unexpected, hours explode.
The shops are usually between a rock and a hard place. The rock is what they think they can get a customer signed on pricewise, the hard place is the sum of their fears in terms what can go wrong and most of the time will, but which, if offered, will send the customer out of the shop covering the 100 meters in 9.5 seconds from a standing start.
Sharks exploit that. But those you find everywhere. Reputation is everything in that field.
Apart from obvious differences between cars and planes, there are common factors where applicable e.g.
I still wonder why the above shop won’t do N-reg. They just need an A&P to be around to “supervise” the work, then inspect and sign. Naturally I am not expecting to get an answer