hardtailjohn wrote:2 to 3 days???? Holy crap!!!! Cessna estimates about 8 to 10 hours, and that's figuring it's an aircraft that the mechanic hasn't seen before. If it's a shop that's never seen the plane before, I'd add a couple for more paperwork to be proven. That's just for inspection....repairs are added to that.
John

Never seen that fast! You are amazing!

I agree 2-3 days for just the inspection is crazy for a high wing cessna. 2-3 days for a retractable twin I can see, maybe.

Never seen an annual done in a day? Must not have spent much time around working airplanes and mechanics.

Only time I’ve seen a Cessna require more than a day for annual was is significant repairs required, or previous mechanics didn’t do paperwork, like verify and log AD compliance.

I’m betting CAP did a good job with paperwork, at least.

Should be a piece of cake. As others noted, change oil when you can, look for water in gas, ferry it to where maintenance is, then fly the hell outta it.

Congrats on a potentially great find.

MTV

Where is your license? Where are your logs? We need to hire you.

An annual on my airplane, once I remove all the inspection plates, cowling, interior, etc., typically takes three hours, then reassembly.

Paying a shop to do all the disassembly and reassembly could easily push it past a day. If they're working on other things at the same time, then three days isn't an unreasonable turnaround. But not three days of BILLED time. That's ridiculous if the records are up to date.

Congrats on a great plane. Government funded aircraft are often the best maintained, in my experience.

We have had everything from FBI to USCG and I found government aircraft have been abused more than most civil aircraft. But, not always. Hope this is not the case.

A wing, prop and engine were severely damaged on a (xxx) (3) letter agency aircraft because pilot bounces off runway? Cost 120K. And eight months. Unreal. PHNL.

Remember the annual can be signed off by the IA with a list of discrepancies given to the aircraft owner if you find items that you would prefer be repaired by your mechanic of choice. It would require a ferry permit to fly the airplane to your mechanic, and depending on the discrepancy may not be something you would be willing to fly the airplane with. Once the discrepancies were repaired and return to service log book entries made the aircraft would be in annual without additional inspection requirements. This may give you options depending on what, if anything, the annual finds.

Tim

8GCBC wrote:Where is your license? Where are your logs? We need to hire you.

I’ll happily put the number of 100 hour inspections I’ve put airplanes through with you. And from day one, I’ve been a participant or at least observer in every one.

I’ve known guys with no mechanic certificate who knew far more about aircraft maintenance than a lot of people with an IA certificate in their pocket.

How does a good shop do an inspection? One mechanic does the engine, another does the airframe and the IA does the paperwork. If a shop can’t do a flying airplane in a day that way, there’s something bad wrong, either with the airplane or the shop.

Course, most mechanics don’t spend most of their time surfing.....

MTV

mtv wrote:How does a good shop do an inspection? One mechanic does the engine, another does the airframe and the IA does the paperwork. If a shop can’t do a flying airplane in a day that way, there’s something bad wrong, either with the airplane or the shop.

Technically, that's three days of work done by three people in one day.
Which is how long my annuals take from start to finish - three days by one guy

I didn’t mean this to get so personal mtv! Please forgive my shop for taking three days. We don’t work that fast around here.

8GCBC wrote:I didn’t mean this to get so personal mtv! Please forgive my shop for taking three days. We don’t work that fast around here.

Nothing personal here. You're the one that wanted to see my repairman's certificates.

I've also worked with shops that would do an annual/100 hour with owner assist in a day, with only one mechanic working on the plane. And, I've worked with shops that wouldn't permit owner assist, but still got inspections done timely.

If you take three days to do an annual, good for you. But, please don't judge other's work without direct knowledge of the quality of their work.

Again, I'm not talking about a "project" airplane here, I'm talking about a plane that's being flown regularly. And, of course, the complexity of the aircraft will affect the amount of time an inspection takes.

In any case, this gent's "new" airplane shouldn't take a whole lot of time to inspect and get airworthy.

MTV

Here’s another vote for the minimalist approach. I wouldn’t change the oil cold before your first flight. Cutting the filter to get a benchmark? OK, sure. There’s going to be some congealed oil that has become a bit gummy as the additives reacted to protect the wear surfaces. Get that stuff hot and flush it through on the ferry flight and drop it when you get home. I wouldn’t waste the gas. Dilute it, but I trust it will keep for a few years. It’s not like automotive gasoline.

Please take your time, annuals that are rushed tend to bite later.

More CAP info...

The interesting thing about government aircraft is the checklists are different. At the shop we must comply with CAP’s own HQ C182 checklist and Cessna’s (and STC continued airworthiness). After my helo flight today I went over to the shop that does the CAP maintenance (hangar next door), we had a good laugh (we would be rich), if a CAP 182 was completed in less than a day (and completed legally). CAP would sometime send “Helper” Cadets which would sometimes make the inspections longer. We were always welcoming to the helpers however.

Also, the higher up the Government food chain the checklists are so incredibly detailed and the complex annuals take a long and expensive time.

I can't imagine what you could spend 3 days looking at on a 182!!! But then again I've only been doing this for 33 years.
John

8GCBC wrote:... I found government aircraft have been abused more than most civil aircraft. ....

8GCBC wrote:Please take your time, annuals that are rushed tend to bite later...
Also, the higher up the Government food chain the checklists are so incredibly detailed and the complex annuals take a long and expensive time.

I'm not sure how you reconcile these two statements. If every previous annual inspection on this CAP airplane was "incredibly detailed and complex", then it really doesn't matter what the pilots did to it in between. As long as you have a data plate, the rest of the airplane is rebuildable.

Hammer wrote:

8GCBC wrote:... I found government aircraft have been abused more than most civil aircraft. ....

8GCBC wrote:Please take your time, annuals that are rushed tend to bite later...
Also, the higher up the Government food chain the checklists are so incredibly detailed and the complex annuals take a long and expensive time.

I'm not sure how you reconcile these two statements. If every previous annual inspection on this CAP airplane was "incredibly detailed and complex", then it really doesn't matter what the pilots did to it in between. As long as you have a data plate, the rest of the airplane is rebuildable.

Please read complex as in complex aircraft not the C182. Ratings you may not have?

Haha...Me could never manage a propeller, flaps, AND landing gear in one flight. Need to be Super Pilot to get that endorsement .

Oh, and by the way, we're not talking about a CAP inspection here. This airplane no longer belongs to CAP, in case you missed that. So, CAP inspection checklists are completely irrelevant to this discussion......he's not gonna use one.

As long as prior inspections were done competently, regardless of whose checklist was used, the inspection to get the airplane airworthy shouldn't be a big deal, assuming the mechanic is familiar with C-182s.

MTV

If you want a "paper annual", you can find someone, somewhere to sign off for you - Labor = $0, pen = $500.

If you follow 14 CFR 43 Appendix D requirements, you will probably require 15 - 20 man hours (C-180/182/185) to do it properly.
You may be able to do this in less time if the A/C has been operated as per the POH, has a good maintenance history and it's logbooks are familiar to you, work is done as a team and tools/resources are easily accessible?

In the late 80's, I put together seaplane/ski-plane programs for the US Coast Guard and US Customs.
This included everything from acquisition, operations, parts inventory, maintenance, training, disposal...
Today, you can go to the Department of Interior's web site and see some of that work.
https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files ... _tr_03.pdf
Government operated aircraft are maintained to a higher standard.
Government pilots are also held to a higher standard.
However, Government pilots and mechanics are humans and humans make errors.

Every Continental Engine came with Instructions for Continued Airworthiness (ICA). Engine preservation and storage instructions are in Chapter 9 of this manual and clearly define storage and return to service instructions.


Good luck on your project.
MSS

mss wrote:If you want a "paper annual", you can find someone, somewhere to sign off for you - Labor = $0, pen = $500.

If you follow 14 CFR 43 Appendix D requirements, you will probably require 15 - 20 man hours (C-180/182/185) to do it properly.
You may be able to do this in less time if the A/C has been operated as per the POH, has a good maintenance history and it's logbooks are familiar to you, work is done as a team and tools/resources are easily accessible?

In the late 80's, I put together seaplane/ski-plane programs for the US Coast Guard and US Customs.
This included everything from acquisition, operations, parts inventory, maintenance, training, disposal...
Today, you can go to the Department of Interior's web site and see some of that work.
https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files ... _tr_03.pdf
Government operated aircraft are maintained to a higher standard.
Government pilots are also held to a higher standard.
However, Government pilots and mechanics are humans and humans make errors.

Every Continental Engine came with Instructions for Continued Airworthiness (ICA). Engine preservation and storage instructions are in Chapter 9 of this manual and clearly define storage and return to service instructions.


Good luck on your project.
MSS

The aircraft inspections I referred to earlier were on the government aircraft that you refer to. Those inspections, however, were done, at least in later years by non government shops. Yes, they met all the requirements of the inspections, but they didn’t take two one hour coffee breaks and an hour and a half for lunch.

We had a great government shop, till a gent who figured he knew everything about “management” took over and forced all the great mechanics to go elsewhere, so he could coerce all the new guys. After that transition, I tried hard to avoid taking airplanes there.

MTV