With how many aircraft fly into Oshkosh every year, I'm curious what percentage of them encounter maintenance issues during their visit?
Like for instance: you park your aircraft and go to turn it on 3 days later only to find the battery is dead. Or your tire went flat. Or you have a locked up starter. Or your alternator died. Or your mag is running rough. Or... you get the picture. Small things, but they happen all over the country every day so I'm sure they happen there.
In a way, I can't think of a better place on earth to have an issue. You have over 650,000 people wandering about who love airplanes; many of them builders who have extensive experience building experimentals from the ground up, and hosted by an organization that promotes that sorta thing. I'd wager there's probably so much aviation knowledge walking the airport that there is no airplane there that couldn't be fixed with the expertise on hand. But on the other hand -- it's an absolute zoo and if you needed parts for a repair, how would you get them? Do vendors like Spruce fly in with hundreds of spare tires, batteries, and other supplies? (I know they bring nearly all their tie-down kits there each year, for instance). But are there wandering A&Ps looking for people with issues and writing invoices for help? Because you know with the condition of some aircraft out there -- there has to be a non-trivial number of people who have an issue. Also -- it's not unusual for this to be a pretty big pilgrimage for pilots and the longest XC they do for the year. Long XCs = lots of flying = if you didn't maintain your airplane well this is when you might see the consequences of your actions.
It's something that I've wondered for a while. Curious if anyone could share insight, or a story about a more invasive repair they saw (or helped with) that happened there.
Like for instance: you park your aircraft and go to turn it on 3 days later only to find the battery is dead. Or your tire went flat. Or you have a locked up starter. Or your alternator died. Or your mag is running rough. Or... you get the picture. Small things, but they happen all over the country every day so I'm sure they happen there.
In a way, I can't think of a better place on earth to have an issue. You have over 650,000 people wandering about who love airplanes; many of them builders who have extensive experience building experimentals from the ground up, and hosted by an organization that promotes that sorta thing. I'd wager there's probably so much aviation knowledge walking the airport that there is no airplane there that couldn't be fixed with the expertise on hand. But on the other hand -- it's an absolute zoo and if you needed parts for a repair, how would you get them? Do vendors like Spruce fly in with hundreds of spare tires, batteries, and other supplies? (I know they bring nearly all their tie-down kits there each year, for instance). But are there wandering A&Ps looking for people with issues and writing invoices for help? Because you know with the condition of some aircraft out there -- there has to be a non-trivial number of people who have an issue. Also -- it's not unusual for this to be a pretty big pilgrimage for pilots and the longest XC they do for the year. Long XCs = lots of flying = if you didn't maintain your airplane well this is when you might see the consequences of your actions.
It's something that I've wondered for a while. Curious if anyone could share insight, or a story about a more invasive repair they saw (or helped with) that happened there.
