Pilot maintenance signoff.

[RobertGary1]

8 hours ago, Andy95W said:

I disagree with both of the above statements.

About the shortest A&P program I've heard of is 16 months.  How many people will really want to go to night school for 8 straight months, pay probably $10,000+ dollars, and not be allowed to charge for their services?  Those people will continue to argue that they don't really need that much training until they are convinced that a weekend distance learning course is all that they REALLY need to work on airplanes- and some will say even THAT is too much.

And as for owners working on their airplanes not falling from the sky- if that were true, then why are Homebuilt/Experimental accidents due to mechanical failure around double the rate of certificated airplanes?  It would seem the "stats" do not prove your point.

I would not be against expanding the FAA's judgement of what constituted Preventative Maintnenance to include some things like landing gear biscuits, but I think there are simply too many variables to ignore.  I know some guys who've been overhauling VW engines for decades.  Overhauling a Lycoming would be child's play to them.  On the other hand, I also know airplane owners who don't know what a box end wrench is.  I know another guy who has built 3 airplanes but doesn't know how his alternator works.

So I think it should stay like it is.  Owners work on their airplanes and either don't tell anyone or they call over a guy like me, an A&P who will check over your work and IF you're a nice guy and a decent human being, I sign off your simple repair.  We don't have to waste a big shop's time, everything is legal, and my refrigerator gets restocked without my wife seeing the credit card bill.

We have a fair number of people enrolled in the 24 month A&P program today that don't plan to earn a living at it. But in order to legally change a vacuum pump they must demonstrate that they can rebuild an engine. They must learn about jet engines, etc. The program is totally not well suited for working on SE piston planes, but it easily could be.

I dont' see how you can compare the experimental market. I'm not suggesting owners be allowed to design, build, major mod, or even apply STCs. Those are things A&P's can't do on their own anyway on certified aircraft.

The real reason AOPA tells me this won't work is because A&P's see it as a threat. They want the whole market and there is an over abundance of A&P's today pushing pay down. But it would be hard to find a logical reason not to have an abbreviated private A&P program that just focused on SE pistons (private only of course to not compete with A&P's).

-Robert

[Andy95W]

There appears to be an A&P shortage, just like CFIs, and it appears to be gettting worse.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverwyman/2017/04/24/looming-aircraft-mechanic-shortage-may-threaten-the-growth-of-the-global-fleet-and-raise-costs/#147b96774984

http://www.brinknews.com/aviation-mechanic-shortage-looms-as-risk-for-industry/

[RobertGary1]

50 minutes ago, Andy95W said:

There appears to be an A&P shortage, just like CFIs, and it appears to be gettting worse.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverwyman/2017/04/24/looming-aircraft-mechanic-shortage-may-threaten-the-growth-of-the-global-fleet-and-raise-costs/#147b96774984

http://www.brinknews.com/aviation-mechanic-shortage-looms-as-risk-for-industry/

I'm not sure how much A&P's play into this. Is much airline maintenance is done by A&P's? Usually Repairmen working under a single shop A&P is what I understand.

I've also seen a lot of US airliners down in Mexico getting major maintenance done. 

"Over the past decade, nearly all large U.S. airlines have shifted heavy maintenance work on their airplanes to repair shops thousands of miles away, in developing countries, where the mechanics who take the planes apart (completely) and put them back together (or almost) may not even be able to read or speak English. US Airways and Southwest fly planes to a maintenance facility in El Salvador. Delta sends planes to Mexico. United uses a shop in China. American still does much of its most intensive maintenance in-house in the U.S., but that is likely to change in the aftermath of the company’s merger with US Airways."

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-disturbing-truth

 

-Robert

 

 

Edited February 14, 2018 by RobertGary1

[Andy95W]

It's good to see thread-drift is alive and well here at MooneySpace! 

I think we're talking about a few different things here, repair stations, airlines, and "regular" GA mechanics.

I don't know of any US airline, Major or Regional, that doesn't require an A&P license for their mechanics.  Just like with pilots in general, and CFIs, there are more people dying or retiring than there are new pilots, CFIs, or mechanics getting their licenses.

- With that said, a repair station is not required to have 100% A&P mechanics, it only has to be a percentage of the workforce for "supervision".  Major work on an airplane (even part 121 airliners) is often farmed out to a repair station, some of which operate outside the US, although they are all required to adhere to FAA standards if they are working on US-certificated airplanes.  (Often these repair stations are selected because they are the lowest bidder- Yikes.)

The FAA proposed a tiered system of A&P licenses a while ago (20 years?).  It would have accomplished some of what you proposed, where a GA mechanic wouldn't need to know about turbines and pressurization as an example.  I honestly don't know what ever came of that idea, but I believe it fell into the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" category and an additional bureaucratic burden that didn't really fix any substantial problem.  Additionally, this was less than 10 years after the Recreational Pilot's License idea that sounded good but turned out to be so unpopular I don't know of anyone that even bothered with it.  If that idea didn't work for pilots, I think the FAA figured it wouldn't work for mechanics for the same reasons.

Clarence can probably weigh in here some, but most big shops that I know of here in the US are so busy they almost don't have time or want to bother with simple things like oil changes or vacuum pump replacements.  When I worked in a shop, it seemed like that kind of stuff was breaking when we had a shop full of airplanes due for annuals or engine changes and we knew if we brought in a guy's airplane for something minor nobody was going to be happy because everything was going to end up taking longer.  

So that's where a limited repairman's license could actually be effective.  It would allow airplanes to be repaired properly without taking time away from large shops.  But again, who would want to spend that much time and money and not come out of it without a real A&P license?

And as for expanding the Preventative Maintnenance tasks allowed, it's hard enough to decide who is competent enough too work on their own airplanes as it is.  (Example- on multiple occasions I've seen people change their own oil but don't realize that the filter is supposed to be safety wired.  They don't do it on their cars, so why do they need it on their Cessna?  Do you want THAT guy changing his own starter?)

And to address Clarence's point, above, about mechanics actually needing MORE, and not less, training- the basic A&P license is supposed to be at least a little like the Private Pilots License- it's a license to learn.  It's unfortunate that not everyone understands that concept or choose to stop learning.

[kortopates]

1 hour ago, RobertGary1 said:

We have a fair number of people enrolled in the 24 month A&P program today that don't plan to earn a living at it. But in order to legally change a vacuum pump they must demonstrate that they can rebuild an engine. They must learn about jet engines, etc. The program is totally not well suited for working on SE piston planes, but it easily could be.

I dont' see how you can compare the experimental market. I'm not suggesting owners be allowed to design, build, major mod, or even apply STCs. Those are things A&P's can't do on their own anyway on certified aircraft.

The real reason AOPA tells me this won't work is because A&P's see it as a threat. They want the whole market and there is an over abundance of A&P's today pushing pay down. But it would be hard to find a logical reason not to have an abbreviated private A&P program that just focused on SE pistons (private only of course to not compete with A&P's).

-Robert

Having been through the community college A&P program some years ago, I can provide a couple of informed comments. Its actually a 2.5 year or 5 semester full time program, far far more training than any pilot certificate or more comparable a professional pilot program from ab initio to professional multi pilot or ATP.  Given the rigor of the training and lack of pay for graduates it quite obvious why we don't have an abundance of A&P's.

Each semester if done full time to finish in the minimum 2.5 yrs. I did it at night after by daytime engineering job, 4 nights from 4pm to 10:30pm. The first semester covers the General classes which prepared you for the General exam. Any pilot wanting to do preventative maintenance would be well served to take the General class. Highly valuable and the only class I originally was committed too. It covers methods and practices and many more basics. In my case, it just opened the door to recognizing how little I knew building a thirst for more. With General completed you could go off for a full year of Airframe or full year of Powerplant. In terms of non-applicable classes to Mooney pilots, there was only one in the powerplant year, covering turbine engines, and one in the airframe covering wood/fabric/composites & finishing; but since it covered finishing/painting it wasn't totally inapplicable. So it was really just one night over one of the 2 semesters for those topics. Not really that much that you could really say doesn't apply to piston and Mooney pilots. If you have a local community college offering the program it reduces the cost to essentially nothing - meaning just your time.

Then after 5 semesters of full time study/work, most A&P go to work for major companies like the airlines, military maintainers, production facilities (e.g., military drones, Boeing production, helicopters) - almost everything but GA since GA only pays $20+ an hour to start with the least benefits.  

Contrast that to a much shorter auto mechanic program where you get trained to be a certified Toyota mechanic or the like in much less time and realize you'll be making better money not just by the hour but also with the promise of being rewarded being efficient at flat rate work. (Cirrus is the only aircraft manufacturer that has gone to flat rate estimates for maintenance, but I don't know how comprehensive that is). 

It then takes another 3 years of experience before an A&P is eligible to apply for the IA. With the IA the, A&P/IA can perform and approve major alterations & repairs (which includes STC's) and perform annual inspections which equates to god like status in the eyes of the FAA.

 

[Andy95W]

I think Paul and I must have been typing our responses at the same time.

[pinerunner]

You have to own it and have certificate number to do the sign-off. They could check to see if you really were the owner of that plane. It's a very carefully selected set of routine things that an owner is legal to do to his own plane. The owner will be very intimate with his own plane presumably since he flies it a lot.  But if he's not a private pilot yet, that wouldn't be likely to be true.

The scenario where you own it but have no certificate shouldn't exist for long since if you can afford to buy it you probably can afford to make fast progress towards your private. If that's not true then you've got bigger problems than worrying about whether or not you can change your own oil.

[kortopates]

1 minute ago, Andy95W said:

I think Paul and I must have been typing our responses at the same time.

Indeed we were. but luckily you clarified that N registered aircraft can only be maintained by FAA certified mechanics or repair stations, with FAA oversight, no matter where in the world the work is done. And thankfully we do have FAA approved repair stations all over the world. 

[kortopates]

5 minutes ago, pinerunner said:

You have to own it and have certificate number to do the sign-off. They could check to see if you really were the owner of that plane. It's a very carefully selected set of routine things that an owner is legal to do to his own plane. The owner will be very intimate with his own plane presumably since he flies it a lot.  But if he's not a private pilot yet, that wouldn't be likely to be true.

The scenario where you own it but have no certificate shouldn't exist for long since if you can afford to buy it you probably can afford to make fast progress towards your private. If that's not true then you've got bigger problems than worrying about whether or not you can change your own oil.

We covered above that you don't have to own it. A certificated  pilot that is "owned or operated by that pilot" may perform preventative maintenance. see CFR Part 43.3 (g) 

I've known lots of pilots with lots of years with their aircraft that have never taken the cowling off and put it back on and have no interest (or time) to do so. Piloting and preventative maintenance are really entirely different skill sets.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, kortopates said:

Indeed we were. but luckily you clarified that N registered aircraft can only be maintained by FAA certified mechanics or repair stations, with FAA oversight, no matter where in the world the work is done. And thankfully we do have FAA approved repair stations all over the world. 

Paul,

I was of the understanding that through the Transport Canada/ FAA bilateral agreement, I can work on a US registered aircraft, but can not sign out it’s Annual Inspection.  The same is true in reverse for a Canadian aircraft in the states, anything but the Annual Inspection can be done by an A&P.

Clarence

[steingar]

If I was that committed to doing repairs on my aircraft I'd do the A&P tomorrow.  Its probably easier than most of the other school I've done.  That said, I am not allergic to others wrenching on my airplane, and like it when folks wrench on my airplane who are more skilled than I, which really doesn't take much.

I will go through the local A&P school when I retire (in my state I can do that for free, or at least waived tuition).  The question of whether I stay in aviation will rest on how well I do in A&P school.  My thinking is I wouldn't do much to an airplane right now, I am at best a ham-fisted mechanic.  I am operating under the thought that while doing mechanical things every day for a couple years I will improve.  If that proves to be the case I'll sell the Mooney, buy the world's hottest experimental, and maintain it myself.  If not I will have to get out of aviation and do something else that is neither expensive nor fulfilling.

[kortopates]

16 hours ago, M20Doc said:

Paul,

I was of the understanding that through the Transport Canada/ FAA bilateral agreement, I can work on a US registered aircraft, but can not sign out it’s Annual Inspection.  The same is true in reverse for a Canadian aircraft in the states, anything but the Annual Inspection can be done by an A&P.

Clarence

Absolutely right.  Perhaps the only exception to the rule about work done outside of the US in that I don't know of any other country we recognize their certificated mechanics like Canada.

[thinwing]

On 2/14/2018 at 10:15 AM, kortopates said:

Indeed we were. but luckily you clarified that N registered aircraft can only be maintained by FAA certified mechanics or repair stations, with FAA oversight, no matter where in the world the work is done. And thankfully we do have FAA approved repair stations all over the world. 

Paul ,I am pretty sure there are many shops with working mechanics that are not Aand P s..they work under direct supervision under shops house IA.A couple of Mooney Service Centers come to mind as well as a couple local shops.Maybe I've gotten the wrong impression and Clarence as a shop owner could set me straight.IE does he employ any non cert mechanics under his direct supervision?As far as going thru the school ,that's my plan after retirement to give me a challenge.Fortunately I've enjoyed 35 years of building,restoring,replacing engines,props,landing gear,fabric,paint,sheet metal etc...all under supervision ...I enjoy it but only on the aircraft I own or in partner on.I think you doing 2 1/2 years of night school showed awesome dedication...I also know I could  not have done my day job by getting to sleep at 1100 pm 4 nights a week!!

 

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2018 by thinwing
Add not

[kortopates]

Paul ,I am pretty sure there are many shops with working mechanics that are not Aand P s..they work under direct supervision under shops house IA.A couple of Mooney Service Centers come to mind as well as a couple local shops.Maybe I've gotten the wrong impression and Clarence as a shop owner could set me straight.IE does he employ any non cert mechanics under his direct supervision?As far as going thru the school ,that's my plan after retirement to give me a challenge.Fortunately I've enjoyed 35 years of building,restoring,replacing engines,props,landing gear,fabric,paint,sheet metal etc...all under supervision ...I enjoy it but only on the aircraft I own or in partner on.I think you doing 2 1/2 years of night school showed awesome dedication...I also know I could  not have done my day job by getting to sleep at 1100 pm 4 nights a week!!

Absolutely, a repair station can issue repairman certificates to someone that is not an A&P nor IA and can have them participate in the annual and do whatever they are approved to do. An IA or shop without a repair station certificate can use people in training to do work that is supervised by an A&P except for the annual inspection which must be legally done by an IA (its not legal to supervise even though it happens). But in every case it's FAA certificated mechanic or repairman that's signing off on the work; with the exception Clarence brought up.

Yes, A&P school is huge time commitment for 2.5 years, but for this pilot it was pure entertainment and always learning. And a bit sleep deprived too. It was only really rough a couple semesters when there was no way around not having a Friday night class which cramped our weekend plans.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[HRM]

Interesting thread.

At the end of the day, the most expensive component in any enterprise is the human one. A 'certified aircraft' is just that, certified to be airworthy. What does that mean?

Well, it means that a lot of very careful human scrutiny has been employed to reduce the probability that the plane is going to come crashing down. This is where all the money is, period.

With experimental aircraft, there is a required placard staring the passenger in the face that reads: THIS AIRCRAFT IS AMATEUR-BUILT AND DOES NOT COMPLY WITH THE FEDERAL SAFETY REQUIREMENTS FOR  "STANDARD AIRCRAFT”. Scary, huh? Not really. This is just a gov'mint CYA to allow people to fly with people that build aircraft on their own. It really speaks to hard won personal freedoms. You are completely free to build an airplane and kill yourself in it. You can even take others with you as long as they understand the risk. It is advisable that when you do this you try to put the fireball in an open field, away from schools and shopping malls.

Ever notice how many 'vintage' Mooney owners are A&P's? There is a reason for this. The Mooney is a very expensive aircraft to maintain. Mike Busch wakes up in a cold sweat every so often over a Mooney annual. Terribly labor intensive. The killer to those A&P owners, however, is the fact that the parts are ludicrously expensive and they are duty-bound to use them (certified parts).

When you build a plane you basically become an A&P/IA for that specific aircraft. Now you can do whatever your crazy little heart desires to it. You can even buy things at Autozone and Walmart and put them on it. You can Experiment to your heart's desire. The only thing you cannot do is use the thing for commercial purposes.