The Annual Inspection--Are You Sitting Down?

Privately registered light aircraft are required by Transport Canada to be inspected once a year, independent of hours flown.  Commercial aircraft on the other hand, must follow a prescribed maintenance schedule that is based on hours flown, usually every 25 or 50 hours.

DKX is owned by me and is, of course, privately registered.  Its annual inspection is due every Spring usually in May.  For many years, I had the good fortune of using a local AME (Aircraft Maintenance Engineer) who had a full time job working at Navistar in Chatham, but worked on little planes in his spare time.  Again, when I worked at Seneca College in Peterborough, I used an AME who worked at the college during the day and fixed little airplanes on the week-end.

The advantage of using both these guys was they were cheap.  Not that they did poor work, but that their primary source of income was met by other means and they weren't motivated to charge an arm and a leg for work they did on the side.  For example, Frank, my AME in Chatham, charged a flat $700 for a no snag inspection.  Chris, my guy in Peterborough, charged $400 for an owner assisted annual.  I usually gave him $500.  Regrettably, both these guys are now dead.  Which sounds a little harsh, but the cool thing with Chris, who died of stomach cancer a year ago, was I had the privilege of leading him to the Lord before he died.  That was truly cool.

When I moved the plane to Edenvale, I naturally decided to use the mechanic located on the field, who is also named Chris.  He seemed like a nice guy and was well spoken of by many of the other airplane owners on the field.  He agreed to do my annual inspection, in his hangar at Edenvale, last May.

As I mentioned before, I do a lot of maintenance on the plane myself, having learned quite a lot working with mechanics over the last 26 years. Over time, I was able to earn both Frank's and the first Chris' confidence such that they were willing to let me do a number of tasks myself.  They would then sign off the log book after inspecting the work.  Over time, they stopped inspecting and simply signed.  It was a great deal and I was very grateful to have earned their trust.

Now I had to work with a new guy and that was a big unknown.  AME's are generally very wary of know-it-all pilots, particularly those who profess to know anything more than the standard systems knowledge that is required to get a pilot's licence.  Often, they know just enough to be dangerous.  It's true.  I've known a few of them.  As a result, AME's believe that a pilot should stick to flying the plane and the AME should stick to fixing them.

Fortunately for pilots and wannbe AME's like me, Transport Canada comes to the rescue.  Transport insists that the aircraft owner is ultimately responsible for the maintenance of his or her aircraft.  I know that sounds weird, but it makes sense when you think about.  If an aircraft crashes, whom do you blame?  You might say, well, if the pilot bends the plane during a crosswind landing for example, then it's poor pilot technique and he's to blame.  If, on the other hand, a plane takes off with the aileron cables installed backward (don't laugh, it's happened) and crashes, then it's obviously the AME's fault.

But what happens if the vacuum pump fails (due to poor maintenance), the vacuum driven instruments fail (because of the pump) and the pilot loses control of the plane (because of poor partial panel technique) and the plane crashes.  Now, whose fault is it?  Well, it's both.  But to what degree?  And therein lies the rub.  Insurance companies (and the Transportation Safely Board who investigate crashes) like to have a primary guilty party to go after.  And if the pilot is ultimately responsible for everything to do with the flight, then he's the guy.  That's why the term Pilot Error comes up in 90% of aircraft crashes.

But you might say, wait a minute, a pilot can't be responsible for crossed aileron cables!  Yes, he can, because a proper pre-flight inspection should check for free and correct movement of all controls.  What about a broken vacuum pump?  Nope.  All pilots train for partial panel ops for just such an eventuality. 

So other than the rare, big, catastrophic mechanical failures (like a failed connecting rod for example), the pilot is held responsible for just about everything else.

So what has all this to do with a private owner/pilot working with his AME?  Plenty.  The AME knows that if anything goes south during a flight, the pilot, not the AME will be probably in the hot seat.  Therefore, the pilot gets to call the shots.  The AME can make recommedations ("we really ought to swap out this vacuum pump") but if the pilot refuses ("I think it'll last another year"), the AME is in the clear, provided he documents it, i.e., "item deferred by owner". 

Finally, it should be noted that the AME is certainly not powerless.  He has the power to ground an airplane should an item be found not airworthy.  And even if the owner insists it's ok, the AME can stand his ground and refuse to sign off the plane.  It would be a fool who ignored that kind of a warning.

So back to our story.

I had a great chat with Chris.  I explained my desire to do the minor stuff myself, under his supervision of course, but would defer all the airworthiness items to him.  To my immense relief, he agreed with everything I asked for, saying he had a similiar arrangement with several other owners on the field.

So that's what we did.  The inspection took most of a day.  Chris prepared a "snag sheet" of items as he worked through the plane and it's various systems.  Knowing my engineering background, he went out of his way to explain any issues he found and made sure I understood why he had snagged the item.

At the end of the day, we had a list of about a dozen items.  I gave Chris the ok to fix a few of them on the spot, since it made sense as the airplane was partially disassembled anyways.  The balance I would work on throughout the year.  It was perfect.

And the cost of the inspection?  Well, you'll have to read the next installment about the bad magneto, as it should have made the list, but didn't.