This answers the question of what you are allowed to do. A more important question is: what do you feel comfortable doing? Our experience is that aircraft owners who participate in their own maintenance take better care of their aircraft and make better pilots. Why? Well, as one pilot explained it: "I heard this noise while I was flying. Before I did my first owner assisted annual, I would've just wondered what it was and left it to mention at the next annual. This time, I had a good suspicion of what it might be, and I knew it wasn't something to play with. I had it in and got it fixed right away." Owners who have gotten inside their aircraft and seen the damage caused by small vibrations and mis-routed cables can easily understand why resolving something like that immediately can prevent a costly repair later.
Norman Aviation specializes in owner assisted services. Non-mechanical New and old owners alike come in for training on how to do their own oil changes and other routine maintenance. We show you how to cut open an oil filter, and what you're looking for once you're in there. We even show you how to drain the oil so as to make the minimum amount of mess.
We hear a lot of comments about mechanics and mechanic shops that don't want owners around when they're working on an aircraft. They do have a point. One of our customers coined the phrase "owner interference" to refer to his experiences in our shop. He's learned a lot of things to do and not to do with his aircraft, as have our many other hands-on customers. We have a rule that the mechanic in charge of your aircraft is allowed to give you directions. Our goal is to teach you to understand your aircraft in a new and intimate way while still keeping you and your aircraft from harm. We've trained our mechanics to work with aircraft owners one-on-one, and they do it on a routine basis.
Will an owner-assisted annual save you money? Yes and no. In the short term, the answer is usually no. Owners can easily open and close all of the panels on an aircraft taking about a day to do both. Our mechanics could do the same work in a couple of hours. Since you do the work, you will save that amount of time off the flat rate on the annual. However, owners who ask a lot of questions can cause the time spent on their aircraft to greatly exceed the flat rate, and in those cases we may have to charge you for the mechanic's time. Usually, your lost wages for the time spent helping will exceed the amount deducted from the flat rate. Also, it is a strange fact that owners often choose to fix things that mechanics might defer, so you may wind up fixing more items than you would otherwise. However, this is where your money savings come in. By learning to change your own oil, for example, you may then be able to do your own oil changes on the weekends. If you pay for 2 hours of mechanic labor to learn how to do your own oil change (instead of the usual 1.5 hour flat rate) you've paid about $40 more for the oil change than you would have had to if you'd let the mechanic do it. In future, however, you can do it on your own at a savings of about $120/50 hours of flight. Keeping up on routine maintenance items between annual inspections can also greatly reduce the cost of future annuals. We've found that our owner-assisted annual inspections generally reduce in cost over time, as the owner takes on more and more of the labor and as the aircraft benefits from the excellent care it receives from a knowledgeable, involved pilot.
Owner assisted maintenance isn't for everyone. We highly recommend, however, that every pilot experience it at least once.
Norman Aviation does not assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product or process listed. Always consult the operating handbook for your aircraft.