George, I agree with you a lot on your points. This isn't a proposal for something easy. It's a proposal for something that will foster and develop a pool of people very well trained on the specifics of maintaining our specific planes.
We all could find, in about an hour, the people the hangar talk say will do a quickie annual, a paper annual. Most of us won't deal with such people. I've never used a non-reputable mechanic in 21 years with my Coupe. Yet when John Wright, Sr., did my plane two years ago, it cost me over $4,000 for parts and labor on things I judged to be fully legitimate! We talked over the details at every stage and my previous high respect for his knowledge and integrity kept going up. Large parts of this were things that ordinary, good FBO mechanics just didn't know about Coupes. But I am simply lucky to live only 70 miles from John. I may move next year. I may stay this close to John and John Jr. for decades to come. But most of you don't live close to him. If you all lived close, I wouldn't be able to get in his door. I've done a couple of inspections in the format you use, George. It's good as it stands, but I've never had type training nor had the mechanic who was doing the inspection. One of the two of us SHOULD have that type specific maintenance rating. Certified by good training and testing. True, planes are not falling like leaves in autumn with the current system. But for the future? There are some medium good, and a few very good, Coupe mechanics around the country and we need to build the pool of expertise through training and incentive. Roy and I tried to think this through as an incentive for people like John Jr. and others to get the Type Rating to be our specialist AI equivalents. Roy and I hope this proposal is a good starting point for a workable solution. Keep those comments coming in, please, everyone. Unless you specifically ask me not to, I'll assume it's OK to respond through the list. Your comments are good and well thought out, George. I hope you'll forgive me for posting them in my reply. G/F Alon S/N149 wrote: > > Ed, I read this in the recent AOPA magazine and I can see trouble. There are > people who will actually do a thorough inspection on their airplanes and > others who will do a "Paper Annual". The big excuse will be, "Hell, I only > flew it 20 hours last year, what could it need? (As you know inactive > airplanes seem to go to hell quicker than ones used on a regular basis. I > think this "self maintenance" could devalue our airplanes. The knowledge of > using the correct hardware alone is HUGE! > I have an agreement with my AP/IA that I open up the airplane, inspect it on > a check sheet, then he comes back and checks over everything and signs it > off. I put the airplane back together. The price generally runs about $300. > I would rather see a list of HONEST and QUALIFIED AP/IAs that are willing to > do annuals at a fair price. > George Frebert > > _______________________________________________________ > Get 100% FREE Internet Access powered by Excite > Visit http://freelane.excite.com/freeisp -- Ed Burkhead Peoria, Ill. Ercoupe N3802H, 415-D Never open an attachment with a ".exe" or ".com" or ".vbs" suffix. To be safe, turn off Microsoft's Visual Basic Macro execution option. Consider not using Outlook for mail - lots of viruses target its security flaws. __________________________________________________________________________ ______ To unsubscribe from this list please send mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
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