With regard to aircraft maintenance I have often wondered if there is some form of algorithm for an ideal shop and layout.
Points to consider:
How many aircraft to fit in hangar and its shape.
How many aircraft not being worked on awaiting parts allowing continuous employment.
How many mechanics to share heating, lighting, toilets, training and possibly specialist tools.
Number of customers to share cost of CAA fees, maintenance manuals and other paperwork.
How many non direct people to do VAT, stores, goods inwards.
How many qualified people to do quality and ARC paperwork.
Where the facility is based grass, hard runways to allow for different aircraft.
Whether to concentrate on specific types or be more generalist.
How much of the work to sub-contract out.
The size and amount of stores to have available.
The customers involvement.
The ability to work away from base.
Etc, etc
A and C
I wasn’t talking about owner maintenance, I was talking about maintenance outside of maintenance organizations, by certificated individuals. The vast majority of FAA licensed aircraft are maintained that way – the requirement for a tax paying organization and its facility adds no value and I think exists purely as a way to opaquely tax the owner.
That said, a fairly large number of my flying friends are A&Ps and obviously they maintain their own aircraft… And mine, with my help.
Seems to be one of those typical UK things.
Never heard of such stories (people shopping around for the cheapest shop with a barely airworthy aircraft) anywhere else.
If that never happened in Germany, how come LIDL is successful 
But seriously, surely human nature is the same everywhere so if e.g. you have a syndicate then almost by definition the members are people who cannot afford to own the plane outright (the exception might be that it is e.g. a jet which they would not fly enough on their own) so there is real pressure on operating costs.
That translates to a pressure (which doesn’t necessarily mean actually doing it) towards minimal maintenance.
Are all German planes really maintained on a money no object basis?
My TB20 is, but that’s because I bought it new in 2002 and have looked after it well, so it costs me very little to maintain it. So if something does need doing, it isn’t an issue.
But for example I know a guy who used to run a 25-person syndicate around a C150 (obviously, ~ 30 years old and heavily used by mostly 30-minute burger run pilots) and their Annual was always about 7500 quid. That is 3x of what I used to pay to a company and about 6x of what I pay now (using an A&P/IA in a specially rented hangar where the two of us work together for 3-4 days). I also know a piston twin owner who spends 20k a year on maintenance.
So there is a huge spectrum of aircraft, conditions of aircraft, and attitudes, and I am amazed that somehow Germany is exempt.
And I know that Germans are perfectly capable of being rude 
The most vicious pilot forum I have ever seen is a German one.
