Once the relief of passing that last checkride has set in and the world of GA flying has officially opened for business, some pilots elect to buy their own airplane. Flight training is often a poor teacher of the complicated subject of aviation maintenance, forcing some to dive into ownership blindly. If you’re a first (or third or fourth) time aircraft owner and don’t know what to look for when choosing a maintenance shop, you risk learning some tough, expensive and possibly dangerous lessons.
As you start searching for your dream airplane, or at least your next one, you should also be researching reputable maintenance shops. Typically, the best place to start is to determine the distance you’re willing to fly and drive to a shop because you’ll likely be doing both during your maintenance visits. With your geographical boundary set, pound away on your favorite search engine or map application to create a long list of shops within your radius. Read the online reviews, look through the websites, and most importantly, ask your flying friends if they’ve had experiences with any of the shops on your list. Firsthand knowledge from current and past airplane owners should carry more weight, by far, than whatever you might find online.
Once you have your list of shops, call each one and ask for their hourly labor rate, a list of references, and the availability of a personal tour. If any of them decline to give references or tours, scratch those shops off your list. If you find that it’s difficult to get someone to call you back or even speak to a person, that’s also a bad sign. Granted, the shop may be busy, but if you can’t contact them as a potential customer, how will the communication go when they have your airplane in pieces on the shop floor? Don’t scratch them off the list if they don’t pick up the phone on the first ring, but it’s a different story if you’ve made a half-dozen attempts and they’ve squawked 7600.
The highest shop rate doesn’t necessarily mean the highest quality work, and vice-versa for the lowest rate. As the adage goes, “If you think a good mechanic is expensive, wait until you see how much a bad one costs!”
Now that you’ve shortened your list and have references, use them. You don’t have to get into specific dollars and cents type conversations, but I think most owners will be glad to openly chat about what they like and dislike about their favorite shop. If you’re not sure what to ask, just talk to folks who have owned an airplane for any length of time and you’ll come away with plenty of talking points. As another old saying goes, with a little editorial license, “Hell hath no fury like an airplane owner scorned.” You could also ask a mechanic who is a friend of a friend to sit down over lunch to talk about some things to look for. You may be surprised how much information we mechanics are willing to share when you feed us.
After you’ve talked to references and asked your flying friends for their opinions, you should be able to whittle your options down to a shortlist. The number of shops on that list depends upon how many shops you’re willing to tour because it’s time to hit the road. Call each of the shops and take them up on their generous offer to give you a tour. Pilots are always looking for an excuse to fly somewhere new, and I think researching maintenance shops should rank high on the mission list.
Walking around the shop, try to take in the big picture. How does it look? What’s the general mood? Does that maintenance tech look like they would rather be doing anything in the world other than their current task? I don’t expect even Disney’s flight department to be whistling while they work, but you can spot a poor work environment from a mile away. If you can’t fathom spending time there, you may want to reconsider having your airplane spend time there.
Take a close look at some of the airplanes being worked on. Are the parts strewn out or are they labeled, protected and neatly stored? Are there tools or greasy hardware laying on painted surfaces, or are delicate surfaces being protected? Basically, are they treating that airplane like you want your airplane to be treated? While on the tour, ask about a time or two where they made a mistake and how they fixed it. If your guide laughs and says, “Well, this one time…,” that’s a good sign. If they stammer a bit and don’t have a lot to offer on this subject, I’d be a little wary.
Even the best shops mess up occasionally because they’re owned and operated by humans who sometimes have bad days. Whether someone forgot to order some critical parts which caused the airplane to be five days late or a technician who replaced an antenna on top of the airplane didn’t realize he was scratching the fuselage with his “Rodeo Champ” belt buckle, bad things happen to the best of us. How we react to and remedy those screw-ups should be what defines us.
Don’t be afraid to ask for the contact information of the owners or operators of the airplanes currently in maintenance. The list of references that the shop initially provided is likely a list of customers who the shop knows will give them glowing reviews, but it’s best to balance that out with some folks who have had less than stellar maintenance visits to get the full picture.
The last suggestion I have on picking shops is a very simple one, but I think it’s probably overlooked much of the time: Take a mechanic with you when you go look around these shops. Word of mouth is a powerful thing in aviation. If you put the word out that you’re going to be touring shops and would love to bring someone with you who knows the business, chances are good that you can find a trustworthy friend of a friend to help you out. The cost for this service ranges anywhere between lunch and a day rate, but having a non-biased opinion is well worth whatever the fee. No matter how well you do your research, a professional maintainer will spot things, good and bad, that you may not notice.
Let’s fast forward a little and say that you’ve found a maintenance shop that does a fantastic job and you’re completely satisfied with how they treat you. Should you use them exclusively from now on? The answer is simple: yes. And no. Maybe? It depends. If you have a shop that you trust completely, there’s nothing wrong with using them for all your work if that’s what makes you comfortable. That said, there are a few advantages to using more than one shop.
The Falcon 900 that I maintain is on an inspection schedule similar to annual inspections. There are three companies that are authorized by the manufacturer to perform maintenance on the airframe and engines, and I use all three of them. I don’t have a set rotation schedule and sometimes I’ll use the same shop two or three years in a row. I get maintenance proposals from all three, compare them, then weigh all the various factors at play to decide which shop I’m going to use that year.
The main reason I rotate shops is that if a shop misses an item – an AD, corrosion, wire bundle chafing – on one inspection, they’ll likely miss it on subsequent inspections. Not because the shop employs substandard technicians but because we’re creatures of habit. We tend to do a task the same way every time, and if we run our hand along a control cable one way with a rag, that’s probably the way we’re going to rag that cable every time. I add tasks that I routinely do in-house to work orders that I farm out because I’m aware of my own biases, and I sleep better knowing that another technician/inspector has performed the same task and came up with the same conclusion.
Each shop brings something different to the table. Shop A may focus on corrosion detection and prevention more than Shop B, but Shop B is looking at bigger picture stuff to keep you ahead of the curve for heavier maintenance items that will be coming due. Shop C may be hyper-focused on preventative maintenance that costs you a little more now to save a lot later. The benefit of the rotation is that I get the best aspects of each shop.
The bigger point that I’ll leave you with is there’s a lot to learn about the maintenance world – a whole lot. I’ve been a maintainer for 27 years and no two days have been the same. There’s always something new to learn, and there will always be something that you didn’t know that will bite you right in the tail beacon. All we can do is learn from our mistakes and educate ourselves to the highest degree possible. Read as much as you can and talk to as many experienced people as possible. Better yet, find a mechanic you can trust and buy them lunch.
