jrh
Well-Known Member
This afternoon I found out about a terrifyingly interesting situation with another flight school's aircraft.
Before I say what happened, a little background is in order.
This other operation's entire philosophy is basically, "We can do it cheaper." Make it as cheap as possible. Flying is too expensive. Make it cheap. Cheap planes, cheap instructors, cheap facilities, you name it. It's all about flying as cheap as possible.
They have a couple old planes with the lowest rental rates in the area. Their instructors are independent contractors who charge $25/hour. They don't have an office, they just work out of an FBO's lobby.
They're loved by all the pilots in the area who have the same mindset of always trying to scrape by in order to get in the air. I routinely have to explain to prospective customers why my school quotes $4,000 more for a private license than this other operator.
In order to save costs, this place does not do their maintenance with a very well respected maintenance shop, located at their home base, that is known to never cut a corner or miss a detail. Instead, they fly the planes out to a small town airport about an hour's flight away where the local mechanic handles the 100 hour and annual inspections.
There have been days when their plane will leave the home base at 8 a.m. for an inspection 100 miles away and return by 4 p.m. the same day. For those doing the math, that's a max of 6 hours to complete an annual inspection.
Ok, by now I'm sure you're wondering what happened today.
Apparently for the past several weeks rental pilots have been complaining of an exhaust smell in the cockpit. For some reason the plane was taken to the reputable shop at the home base to investigate the problem. When the exhaust shroud for the heater was removed, the mechanic found the exhaust pipe not just cracked, but broken in two. That's right...one pipe, two pieces.
Good grief...the only way to get more exhaust in to the cockpit would probably be to just run the exhaust pipe straight in to the window.
How long it flew like that? I have no idea. But I know exhaust pipes don't break in two overnight.
I was shocked nobody had died. How that plane got through the winter months, I couldn't tell you.
But you know what really pissed me off about this whole deal, aside from the fact that innocent people almost died because of shoddy maintenance? The operation has no regard for how their cheapness affects other people. If their plane had gone down, it would have looked terrible for the whole local aviation community. Fewer people would be interested in learning to fly. Fewer people would see aviation as a safe, realistic way to travel. Fewer people would trust our school, even though we have top notch maintenance and never cut corners.
I'm getting wound up now, so I better stop. Just something to think about when you're comparing prices at your local airports.
Before I say what happened, a little background is in order.
This other operation's entire philosophy is basically, "We can do it cheaper." Make it as cheap as possible. Flying is too expensive. Make it cheap. Cheap planes, cheap instructors, cheap facilities, you name it. It's all about flying as cheap as possible.
They have a couple old planes with the lowest rental rates in the area. Their instructors are independent contractors who charge $25/hour. They don't have an office, they just work out of an FBO's lobby.
They're loved by all the pilots in the area who have the same mindset of always trying to scrape by in order to get in the air. I routinely have to explain to prospective customers why my school quotes $4,000 more for a private license than this other operator.
In order to save costs, this place does not do their maintenance with a very well respected maintenance shop, located at their home base, that is known to never cut a corner or miss a detail. Instead, they fly the planes out to a small town airport about an hour's flight away where the local mechanic handles the 100 hour and annual inspections.
There have been days when their plane will leave the home base at 8 a.m. for an inspection 100 miles away and return by 4 p.m. the same day. For those doing the math, that's a max of 6 hours to complete an annual inspection.
Ok, by now I'm sure you're wondering what happened today.
Apparently for the past several weeks rental pilots have been complaining of an exhaust smell in the cockpit. For some reason the plane was taken to the reputable shop at the home base to investigate the problem. When the exhaust shroud for the heater was removed, the mechanic found the exhaust pipe not just cracked, but broken in two. That's right...one pipe, two pieces.
Good grief...the only way to get more exhaust in to the cockpit would probably be to just run the exhaust pipe straight in to the window.
How long it flew like that? I have no idea. But I know exhaust pipes don't break in two overnight.
I was shocked nobody had died. How that plane got through the winter months, I couldn't tell you.
But you know what really pissed me off about this whole deal, aside from the fact that innocent people almost died because of shoddy maintenance? The operation has no regard for how their cheapness affects other people. If their plane had gone down, it would have looked terrible for the whole local aviation community. Fewer people would be interested in learning to fly. Fewer people would see aviation as a safe, realistic way to travel. Fewer people would trust our school, even though we have top notch maintenance and never cut corners.
I'm getting wound up now, so I better stop. Just something to think about when you're comparing prices at your local airports.