Why seek Professional Advice?

If you were to buy a house it is almost inconceivable that you would do so without the professional advice of a solicitor and surveyor. If you were to buy a motorcar, you would undoubtedly do so without legal advice but you may well have it inspected by an organisation such as the AA, not only to check that it is mechanically sound but also to search that it is not subject to a Hire Purchase Agreement.

Why is it then that people spend between £70,000 to £100,000 for a Piper Warrior III or up to £350,000 for something such as a Piper Seneca V without taking any advice whatsoever.

Obviously, you will think that this article has been written by an aircraft maintenance organisation. They will give you all the reasons why you should incur services from people such as them. They will tell you all the hazards to frighten you and make it so complicated! They would, wouldn’t they!

The following points may all be obvious once one stops to think about it – but did you think about it when you were having your conversation with Mr Smith in the bar?

Has it been properly and fully maintained? If you were buying a car, you would check the position with regard to the MOT, that of an aircraft is more complicated. In part with regard to maintenance, you should see the log books and historic maintenance records. Where are the records? Whilst Mr Smith might be in possession of the aircraft, it regularly happens that the records are held by a maintenance facility who have not been paid and they then exercise a lien over the records, refusing (quite legally) to release them until the last maintenance bill has been paid. It might sound obvious that such records are held by the organisation which has maintained the aircraft – but have they been paid? The aircraft meets the airworthiness standards of its current state of registry but are the UK CAA standards and requirements the same, or will work have to be done so as to make the aircraft airworthy in accordance with UK standard

In writing this article, it was decided that to share some of the horror stories that have come up was probably the best way to demonstrate why you need technical advice.

Piper PA28-161

We recently carried out a pre purchase inspection on a United States (“N”) registered PA28-161 Warrior. The prospective owner intended to keep the aircraft on the N register. The physical inspection found no serious defects but looking through the log books we noticed that Piper Service Bulletin (SB) 1006 Corrosion Inspection of the main spar behind the fuel tank had not been carried out. As this is a Piper Service Bulletin and not a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Airworthiness Directive (AD), it is not mandatory on an American Registered aircraft, but it is mandatory on a British registered aircraft – Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Airworthiness Directive 001-08-98.

We recommended that the inspection be done before he purchased the aircraft. Fortunately no corrosion was found as the cost of replacing the wing is in the region of £15,000. It is for this reason that even on many British registered PA28’s we recommend carrying out the spar inspection. The AD calls for the inspection every seven years and whilst the aircraft is compliant because the inspection was carried out six years ago, you could be facing a very big bill in a year’s time.

Piper PA 22

We carried out an Annual Inspection recently on a PA22 a Piper Colt the aircraft appeared to be in immaculate condition but when we looked at the aircraft records we found that a mistake had happen in the log book and a major AD had been missed.

The AD that had been missed was 99-01-05 it requires that the aircrafts wing strut fork to be removed from the aircraft and sent a way for crack testing. If the forks had failed in flight the wing would have detached from the aircraft. This AD should have been carried out in 2001 this meant that the aircraft C of A and insurance had not been valid since then.We also found that a low volts warning light had not been fitted to the aircraft this is a Civil Aviation Authority, generic requirement and must be fitted to all single engine aircraft with a UK Certificate of Airworthiness. As the CAA no longer deal with minor modifications we had to apply to EASA for the minor mod for the low volts warning light this took 8 week to be approved.