Paint My Plane in Mexico

Dean Chesnut

Dean Chesnut

Filing Flight Plan
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Dec 22, 2021
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Dean Chesnut
Has anyone had their plane painted in Mexico and how was the quality and comparative cost? Any recommendations?
 
Brad Z said:
This should be an interesting thread. Is painting airplanes in Mexico a thing?
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I'm on the border and hadn't heard of it. We used to take cars over to paint there SUPER cheap, better than Earl Schieb .... they came back looking NICE ... they did tend to over use Bondo if your car needed it ...
 
Join Baja Bush Pilots, there are many discussions on there from people that have had it done down in Mexico.
 
Heavy metal fleck, lots of patterned pinstripes with a rolled & tucked fuzzy interior all standard.

In all seriousness, I asked the owner of a prominent local paint shop who happens to be a Mexican about servicing or painting planes in Mexico. He said for aircraft the the labor is about the same for certified work.
 
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I know many motor home owners who have had excellent results from South of the Border (not the one in SC either).
 
Another thing they do well is polish bare aluminum.
 
I do know of wrecked, rolled over pickup trucks that no shop in the U.S. would touch that were repaired and painted in Mexico that came back looking almost new. Around here the great majority of body shop painters are ethnically Mexican so it seems to make sense. Hopefully there are members that can provide direct experience. Given the wage differential it seems that this would be a great opportunity for a Mexican paint shop especially if it could partner with an American A&P.
 
Any experience with getting E/ABs painted in Mexico?
 
SkyDog58 said:
Has Mexico changed their recent policy against allowing US experimental aircraft in?
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Depends who you ask. :)

People I trust tell me it was never a policy. Just some comandantes flexing their muscles.
Other people I trust tell me it is a new rule.
Still others have helped friends bring their N experimentally into the country.

I have lived in Mexico for 12 years and have a bunch of pilot friends, as you would expect. Several have built planes, trucked them to the border and then registered them as US planes. So they are N registered exp planes that live full time in Mexico. They haven't reported anything unmanageable.
 
rwellner98 said:
Depends who you ask. :)

People I trust tell me it was never a policy. Just some comandantes flexing their muscles.
Other people I trust tell me it is a new rule.
Still others have helped friends bring their N experimentally into the country.

I have lived in Mexico for 12 years and have a bunch of pilot friends, as you would expect. Several have built planes, trucked them to the border and then registered them as US planes. So they are N registered exp planes that live full time in Mexico. They haven't reported anything unmanageable.
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All US experimental aircraft have the following Operating Limitation as part of the airworthiness certificate.

This aircraft does not meet the airworthiness standards of Annex 8 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation. Operations in airspace outside of the United States will require the permission of the applicable foreign authority. That permission must be carried aboard the aircraft together with this U.S. airworthiness certificate and, upon request, be made available to an FAA inspector or the applicable foreign authority in the country of operation. Operations may be further restricted by the applicable foreign authority. This may include not allowing use of an airport, requiring specific routing, and restricting flight over specific areas. The operator must comply with any additional limitation prescribed by the applicable foreign authority when operating in its airspace.

I believe the issue was that the Mexican aviation authority (AFAC) decided to begin enforcing this and wanted all experimentals to apply for and carry that permission. Prior to that, it was basically ignored. The hope was that they’d back down on that enforcement although they were well within their rights.
 
SkyDog58 said:
Operations in airspace outside of the United States will require the permission of the applicable foreign authority.

I believe the issue was that the Mexican aviation authority (AFAC) decided to begin enforcing this and wanted all experimentals to apply for and carry that permission. Prior to that, it was basically ignored. The hope was that they’d back down on that enforcement although they were well within their rights.
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Yes, that's the controversy as I understand it also. Some comandantes think that issuing the permit constitutes "permission of the applicable foreign authority", others (notably in Baja California) apparently read the regs differently (and suddenly, out of the blue).
 
schmookeeg said:
Huh, not as helpful as I would have thought. I guess step one is learning the gender of your airplane.
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The noun "avión" is male gendered. So go with that for now?

I always thought it was interesting that "piloto" doesn't have a feminine "pilota" form. So it ends up being the confusingly gendered (to spanish learners) "la piloto"
 
rwellner98 said:
Yes, that's the controversy as I understand it also. Some comandantes think that issuing the permit constitutes "permission of the applicable foreign authority", others (notably in Baja California) apparently read the regs differently (and suddenly, out of the blue).
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I guess that is what can happen when local authorities in any country try to do the federal authority's job for them or usurp it. At least here in the US, the doctrine of federal preemption and the FAA's territorial nature when it comes to aviation helps to stop that sort of thing from happening.
 
Are there FAA certificated A&Ps to balance the control surfaces, new w&b, rerig the AC and an IA to sign the 337 then make the appropriate return to service entries?

For expirimental AC this would not matter. But certified AC this would matter.
 
When I personally stripped and painted my plane (it's in the pix) the only mechanic thing done was to sign off my re-installation of control surfaces and balancing. The balance was OK which is just what you would expect. My plane has never been re-weighed since it left Cessna and probably never will be. Don't over complicate something so simple if tedious. The highest paid work/hour I ever did in my life was re-painting my plane. By paid I mean what hourly wage I would have to be paid to pay a shop to paint the plane after taxes. You don't pay taxes on DIY work and marginal taxes are much higher than most realize. Say 35% Federal, 4% state and 16% FICA. That's over 50%. It's the tax brackets that count not your average Income tax. Using today's low pressure guns which waste far less paint (reduced overspray) all materials would be about $3,000 or so. If a shop charged $13,000 for a 3 color paint I would have to earn over $26,000 to pay that shop so my net cost would be $23,000. It took me about two or three weeks for the whole job this works out to around $400,000 per year. Beats building fences on my ranch which is my opportunity cost.
 
Snowmass said:
Don't over complicate something so simple if tedious.
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How did you get the 337 signed off without a new w&b? Painting is a major alteration and would require an IA and 337.
 
pfarber said:
Painting is a major alteration and would require an IA and 337.
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Well I guess the FAA needs to remove "painting" from the preventative maintenance list in Part 43 Appx A so no pilot gets busted then.....:rolleyes:
 
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Bell206 said:
Well I guess the FAA needs to remove "painting" from the preventative maintenance list in Part 43 Appx A so no pilot gets busted then.....:rolleyes:
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It’s preventative maintenance provided you’re not painting weighted control surfaces.

14 CFR Appendix A to Part 43(c)(9)
 
SkyDog58 said:
I guess that is what can happen when local authorities in any country try to do the federal authority's job for them or usurp it. At least here in the US, the doctrine of federal preemption and the FAA's territorial nature when it comes to aviation helps to stop that sort of thing from happening.
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Federal law is supposed to usurp local authority in Mexico also. I think the bigger difference in the countries isn't the structure of government (they are *very* similar from that standpoint), but that enforcement of laws in Mexico is spotty, at best, and frequently corrupt.
 
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Snowmass said:
Don't over complicate something so simple if tedious…

…Say 35% Federal, 4% state and 16% FICA. That's over 50%. It's the tax brackets that count not your average Income tax. Using today's low pressure guns which waste far less paint (reduced overspray) all materials would be about $3,000 or so. If a shop charged $13,000 for a 3 color paint I would have to earn over $26,000 to pay that shop so my net cost would be $23,000. It took me about two or three weeks for the whole job this works out to around $400,000 per year.
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I agree. Don’t over complicate.
 
Wanted to revive this post. Is there any updates of anyone who flew down to Mex and got their plane painted?
 
Hector Parra said:
I'm wondering if flying the plane there (and back) will be that much cheaper than paint it in the US
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You often need to fly a plane to another distant location to get it painted in the U.S. But DIY at your home area may be by far the cheapest. It certainly was for me. Painting is not difficult but the modern, citified American male seems horrified and getting is hands dirty. Being a country hick I have painted my cars and planes many times. I painted both the C-210 and Caddy in the pix.
 
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