My AI of eleven years' relationship retired at 63 years old, last year. We held a party and wished Mike and Mary a happy retirement. We all miss Mike Fish up here in central IL. When I looked at the books (he was trying to sell the shop) he was taking a salary of $45,000 per year. No benes. No wonder he needed to retire. Five of us (all multi operators) drew up a business plan and agreed to put up the $$s to keep the two mechs on the field should no buyer be found.
A local attorney stiffed him on about $4,300 of repair work. A local businessman sued him for an improper ring job on a TSIO 520 in a C310. I'm not sure to this day that he was wrong (this same guy drove his 310 out of the hangar and chopped off the top 7" of the empennage, and flew to Waukesha. Four years later he accepted theshort runway, put the MU2 into beta before the nose was down and shoved the nosewheel right through the cabin floor. The pax got out and said they had paid for the ride.). Mike and I were so comfortable he would sometimes do unsolicited maintenence checks that he thought should be done (not called for, but made sense). I'd always pay him for these. He once called me and said "you should replace that right trunnion (Seneca II, repeat 50 hrs inspections). I grounded the a/c and ordered a new one.
The guys he finally sold to are the opposite. I asked for a 50 hour oil change. I expect that's about 4 hours of work, two $10.00 CH48108 filters and 16 quarts of oil It was $450. OK says, I, and paid the bill. What the new owner didn't tell me is that he had done unsolicited compressions (my fax says 100 hours- last one 50 hrs ago), found two low (heard it in the exhaust pipe) and wrote the grounding entry in the log. Still not a problem. Then I asked him to help me find a pair of Continental Factory jug kits. His answer "I'm too busy, I can't help you". Only FBO on the field.
Says I, "Tim, how long do you think you're gonna stay in business?" He did NOT offer to sign the ferry permit.
Never mind how I got it there, but two factory jugs were replaced by the guy 48 nm away.
You will not find too many fields where the pilots get together and spend $$s to keep the mech (beyond maintenance). But we're waiting for this current guy to fail.
And, guess what I found? At the 48 nm away field, seven multi operators from my home strip in the maintenence hangar. The CFI at my base quit. Took a loan, bought a C152 and is doing OK on his own. I sendhim all the SE stuff I can't do (I do IRs, multi transitions, etc). The FBO is selling its former fleet of training aircraft.
Yes parts are a mechanic's enemy. But sometimes the mechanic is the mechanic's worst enemy. This guy is a turkey.
