A&P Availability

Tom-D

Tom-D

Taxi to Parking
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Feb 23, 2005
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Tom-D
How far must you go to get maintenance?

Does your A&P come to you?
 
On the field at both my airports. If I get stuck in the local area ,he will come to me.
 
The nearest one is the next county over--23 nm east or west. Driving time is 45 minutes to either one, depending on traffic maybe a little more. Fuel is 10 nm south, but when I hangared there the A&P was afraid of my plane and wouldn't even do simple things much less an annual.
 
Across to the hangar on the opposite side of the access taxiway.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Our A&P is semi-retired and works out of his truck. He helps a few crop dusters out and has a few planes he looks after. Drives to the hangar when we need him. He doesn't move very fast and doesn't get in a hurry but is fair with his charges.
 
Primary guy is about 6 hangar doors down the row for me. Most every contact includes, "do you want to tow it to your shop and do it here."

There are also 2 backup guys I use on field when Joe is too busy.
 
My A&P for my last two airplanes came to my hangar...awesome! But, he took a new job last year and doesn't have time to work on private planes any longer. I'm currently on the hunt for a new A&P. In order to give myself some breathing room, I'm having the airplane go through an annual right now with a guy in Texas (where my new plane is stuck until my local airport re-opens). I really like his work so far, he seems very detail oriented, but flying to another state every year for the annual doesn't seem like a fun time. I guess maybe if it was in a good vacation spot, that could make up for it; maybe have the family tag along and make a trip out of it or something.
 
I used to have my mechanic on the same field. In fact, this is why I moved to CJR (good Navion guy there). Now, for annuals, I fly back to my old mechanic. There are some local guys (6 mile flights) and some guys on the field who will do minor stuff.
 
My preferred A&P is about 60nm from me, but I'll likely be moving closer that way in the future. There is a shop at my home base, but I won't let them touch my plane. Too many bad stories from hangar neighbors as well as their utter incompetence shown when I had a simple task of swapping an AI.
 
Avionics=34 nm away, annual=21nm away.
 
To be fair, both shops are dealing with attrition and are down to 1 A&P each. The hangars are always full and there's always a wait.
 
I used to fly into my old mechanic, who was signing off airplanes since the beginning of aviation. After he died (about 1970), the FAA determined that he had NEVER had any kind of mechanics certificate. But he had rebuilt countless airplanes, and had thousands of signatures out there.
 
my mechanic is a basement kinda mechanic..... he works outta his house.
 

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When I asked the question, I was wondering if I was the only one traveling to maintain customers.
It's 70 miles to Harvey Field. (4 Customers). 48 to Diamond Point (2 customers) 45 To Bayview (6 customers)

The next question. Should I start charging traveling expenses ?
 
I wouldn't balk at paying a travel fee, that convenience would certainly be worth something to me.
 
Challenged said:
I wouldn't balk at paying a travel fee, that convenience would certainly be worth something to me.
Click to expand...
What would you charge? your standard hourly rate? or?
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
what would it cost the owner to bring to you....then take it home?
Click to expand...
Yep. We always flew to our preferred shop, but then had to have someone bring us home whilst the work was being done. Maybe you could go to their field, and fly the airplane back to yours, do the work, and return it. I'd pay for that!
 
That doesn't seem terribly out of line to me, but might depend a hair on the shop rate and the travel time involved. I have a CFI I wanted to use that charged a travel fee, but I can't recall the details on if it was a flat rate or what.
Tom-D said:
What would you charge? your standard hourly rate? or?
Click to expand...
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Yep. We always flew to our preferred shop, but then had to have someone bring us home whilst the work was being done. Maybe you could go to their field, and fly the airplane back to yours, do the work, and return it. I'd pay for that!
Click to expand...
I no longer Fly. I can't bring it to my shop anyway. I'm not on an airport.
 
Tom-D said:
The next question. Should I start charging traveling expenses ?
Click to expand...
Tom-D said:
What would you charge? your standard hourly rate? or?
Click to expand...
After I went mostly owner-assisted, I charged travel time based on the individual situation. For example, for those people who were in my "home" area (15 mi) no charge. For those outside that it may depend if there were one or more than one I was assisting at the same time. In some cases I traded out the travel time. I found it was more advantageous to discuss travel expenses separately and sometimes outside a straight hourly rate as some owners valued my "flexibility" differently. Regardless how I charged, I always ensured when I got back home I personally felt my overhead expenses were covered adequately.
 
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Bell206 said:
After I went mostly owner-assisted, I charged travel time based on the individual situation. For example, for those people who were in my "home" area (15 mi) no charge. For those outside that it may depend if there were one or more than one I was assisting at the same time. In some cases I traded out the travel time. I found it was more advantageous to discuss travel expenses separately and sometimes outside a straight hourly rate as some owners valued my "flexibility" differently. Regardless how I charged, I always ensured when I got back home I personally felt my overhead expenses were covered adequately.
Click to expand...
That's a good idea, set price for certain distances, because some places I go require a ferry ride. this last week it was a 4 day evolution (annual and maintenance) the ferry ride for the coach was 70 bucks one way.
 
Tom-D said:
What would you charge? your standard hourly rate? or?
Click to expand...

We have five shops on the field. Vary from large, doing flight school planes and commercial operators to a boutique shop specializing in smallish jets and Cirrus' and a one man show that takes care of mostly piston twins (he's outstanding).

And we have a guy who travels in with a small following of loyal owners here. He charges a slightly reduced hourly rate for his travel time plus a mileage charge to offset fuel, etc. Generally tries to organize to do more than one plane in a trip so the travel cost charges can be split.
 
Enough to make it worth it to you to take on the job, but not too much so that it’s not worth it to them to pay you that much. The exact numbers will be determined by your actual capabilities, your perceived capabilities, the local market (what your competition is doing), the desperation of the client, and more.
 
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