I only call for engineering expertise a few times a year. However, twice, recently, I have called during the time the short window of opportunity only to find that ALL of the engineers are "in a meeting".
When am I supposed to be able to get hold of the support we pay our membership and project fees for?
Rans6....
Calling for engineer support.
Moderators: John Dean, Moderator
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rans6andrew
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Calling for engineer support.
Andrew Cattell
Rans S6 Microlight.
Rans S6 Microlight.
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Brian Hope
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Hi Andrew, if the engineers are at a meeting I can assure you and welshman that they are involved in important LAA business, either trying to resolve a particularly difficult issue - like grounded Zenairs, or potentially grounded Eurostars - or dealing with a CAA audit or airworthiness meeting. It would be nice to think that £65 quid a year pays to have a highly qualified engineer sitting by the phone just in case you call, but sadly it doesn't work quite like that.
Pot luck I'm afraid and you were just unlucky. No doubt if you ring tomorrow somebody will be able to help you.
Pot luck I'm afraid and you were just unlucky. No doubt if you ring tomorrow somebody will be able to help you.
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rans6andrew
- Posts: 63
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I have spent more than £700 pounds at the LAA this past year in project registration and first permit fees, plus the membership. It just seems that if they are going to dictate the times that we are allowed to call them it would be reasonable to expect there to be someone available during those times.
Rans6...
Rans6...
Andrew Cattell
Rans S6 Microlight.
Rans S6 Microlight.
Andrew I'm one of the 'lucky' owners of the zenith 601xls. I year and 1 week after being grounded I test flew my aircraft.
My advice is that you need to do nothing to your aircraft which requires 'engineering input'. If you do - remember you have lost all control over any actions. Timescales will resemble those of central government, the results are by no means predictable and they will cost money.
Noting your query elsewhere - ring all the owners and find out which one of them carried out a similar mod. The LAA could do this, but they don't, the mod arrangements are frankly bureurocrat and difficult. In the days of Frank, he would simply look up a similar aircraft file and tell you what he wanted. The pseudo regulator role of the LAA has stopped that. Alternatively get in touch with someone like Paul Walsh and send him enough cash to cover his costs in answering these sort of questions - it would be money well spent. Your inspector may be another source - but that depends on their background.
Best of luck.
My advice is that you need to do nothing to your aircraft which requires 'engineering input'. If you do - remember you have lost all control over any actions. Timescales will resemble those of central government, the results are by no means predictable and they will cost money.
Noting your query elsewhere - ring all the owners and find out which one of them carried out a similar mod. The LAA could do this, but they don't, the mod arrangements are frankly bureurocrat and difficult. In the days of Frank, he would simply look up a similar aircraft file and tell you what he wanted. The pseudo regulator role of the LAA has stopped that. Alternatively get in touch with someone like Paul Walsh and send him enough cash to cover his costs in answering these sort of questions - it would be money well spent. Your inspector may be another source - but that depends on their background.
Best of luck.
Pete Morris
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Brian Hope
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- Location: Sheerness Kent
Pete, the XLs were grounded by the CAA following a spate of fatal accidents abroad as a result of structural failures of the wing. There were differing views on what was causing these failures and initially Zenair's view was that it was caused by aileron flutter. Their recomendation was that owners tightened up the aiteron cables.
LAA could have decided to do nothing, leaving the non existant UK agent or a group of owners to work with Zenair and the CAA to resolve the problem and get the aircraft flying again. However, wishing to support its members, the Engineering department spent a considerable amount of time and money coming up with a solution that Zenair and CAA were happy with, and that could be retro-fitted without major dismantling of the aircraft. Good to know that you are grateful for their efforts.
The material spec problem on the Eurostars is similarly taking a lot of Engineering time, the initial work having played a significant part in the type not having been grounded, as looked an almost dead cert when the problem came to light. Work continues to come up with a satisfactory solution so that the 140 odd LAA members and similar number of BMAA members who own these aircraft are not left with expensive ornaments gathering dust in the back of a hangar.
It is worth considering what would happen if the CAA looked after the continuing airworthiness of permit aircraft and a type had a serious safety issue - the answer being that they would simply ground the aircraft and then do absolutely nothing. Resolving the problem would be down to the owners and, if they could persuade them to help and they still existed, the kit suppliers. Personally I am very grateful that LAA take a far more magnanimous view and roll up their sleeves to get the aircraft flying safely again.
LAA could have decided to do nothing, leaving the non existant UK agent or a group of owners to work with Zenair and the CAA to resolve the problem and get the aircraft flying again. However, wishing to support its members, the Engineering department spent a considerable amount of time and money coming up with a solution that Zenair and CAA were happy with, and that could be retro-fitted without major dismantling of the aircraft. Good to know that you are grateful for their efforts.
The material spec problem on the Eurostars is similarly taking a lot of Engineering time, the initial work having played a significant part in the type not having been grounded, as looked an almost dead cert when the problem came to light. Work continues to come up with a satisfactory solution so that the 140 odd LAA members and similar number of BMAA members who own these aircraft are not left with expensive ornaments gathering dust in the back of a hangar.
It is worth considering what would happen if the CAA looked after the continuing airworthiness of permit aircraft and a type had a serious safety issue - the answer being that they would simply ground the aircraft and then do absolutely nothing. Resolving the problem would be down to the owners and, if they could persuade them to help and they still existed, the kit suppliers. Personally I am very grateful that LAA take a far more magnanimous view and roll up their sleeves to get the aircraft flying safely again.
Brian - the chronology of this is important - the XLs were grounded by the LAA, the CAA followed up directly with the MPD.
The LAA grounded the aircraft first, but doubtless knowing that the CAA were going to act.
Being 'grateful' has nothing to do with it. The LAA approved the design - had they walked away from the issue, I and several other owners would have pursued the association. Like it or not actively approving a design brings a level responsibility.
I am acutely aware of the technical details of the grounding and its reasons, so please do not try and re-write things.
The point I was making was that if you have to rely upon LAA engineering things will take time, you will have no control over the outcome and bluntly you are not much of a priority.
You also neglected to mention that the xl owners had a compulsory fee from the LAA to partially pay for that work.
There were also sterling efforts put in by the past agent and most particularly by the new agent - without whose work the issue would probably not have been resolved at all.
I know you are dedicated in your support of the LAA, I too appreciate its existance - but once you need engineering help you are drawing from a small resource with a lot of differing priorities. It is far better to not have to do it, or not chose to do it. If you really must then hire your own - otherwise things will take what they take.
The LAA grounded the aircraft first, but doubtless knowing that the CAA were going to act.
Being 'grateful' has nothing to do with it. The LAA approved the design - had they walked away from the issue, I and several other owners would have pursued the association. Like it or not actively approving a design brings a level responsibility.
I am acutely aware of the technical details of the grounding and its reasons, so please do not try and re-write things.
The point I was making was that if you have to rely upon LAA engineering things will take time, you will have no control over the outcome and bluntly you are not much of a priority.
You also neglected to mention that the xl owners had a compulsory fee from the LAA to partially pay for that work.
There were also sterling efforts put in by the past agent and most particularly by the new agent - without whose work the issue would probably not have been resolved at all.
I know you are dedicated in your support of the LAA, I too appreciate its existance - but once you need engineering help you are drawing from a small resource with a lot of differing priorities. It is far better to not have to do it, or not chose to do it. If you really must then hire your own - otherwise things will take what they take.
Pete Morris
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Brian Hope
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Pete, as an owner of a Zenair I realise you know the full SP, but others reading this thread may not, hence my relating of the basic details. The 'fee' of £200 was a minimal amount of money in relation to what the true costs were to the association.
The legal aspects of approval are interesting and if we are opening ourselves up to members sueing when an unforseen airworthiness issue rears its head then maybe we should be charging for the appprovals service and/or charging a royaly on each aircraft in order to cover the cost of adequate insurance. Sad that the true spirit of what PFA/LAA was for the first half century of its life has now been killed off by the blame culture and greed of modern life.
There are many people who use the mod system, have no trouble and get a speedy turnaround. Some of course run into problems but in all the years that I have been involved and taken engineering grievences to Engineering to try to get them resolved, nine out of ten of them have been completely different stories to what I was told. It is not uncommon for Engineering to ask a member a question, wait a month for a response and then have him ranting a week later that it's all taking too long! I accept that there are problems, that is the nature of the beast, but there is also a genuine effort to constantly improve and speed up the service.
The legal aspects of approval are interesting and if we are opening ourselves up to members sueing when an unforseen airworthiness issue rears its head then maybe we should be charging for the appprovals service and/or charging a royaly on each aircraft in order to cover the cost of adequate insurance. Sad that the true spirit of what PFA/LAA was for the first half century of its life has now been killed off by the blame culture and greed of modern life.
There are many people who use the mod system, have no trouble and get a speedy turnaround. Some of course run into problems but in all the years that I have been involved and taken engineering grievences to Engineering to try to get them resolved, nine out of ten of them have been completely different stories to what I was told. It is not uncommon for Engineering to ask a member a question, wait a month for a response and then have him ranting a week later that it's all taking too long! I accept that there are problems, that is the nature of the beast, but there is also a genuine effort to constantly improve and speed up the service.
“The 'fee' of £200 was a minimal amount of money in relation to what the true costs were to the association.”
That would represent 2/3 of my maintenance budget for a year…
However, my experiences with engineering have been almost all positive. Keep up the good work and don’t let the ******** get you down!
Rod1
That would represent 2/3 of my maintenance budget for a year…
However, my experiences with engineering have been almost all positive. Keep up the good work and don’t let the ******** get you down!
Rod1
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Trevor Harvey
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John Brady
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Hi Gasax,
Nothing in this life is free. My solicitor charges me £200 an hour including time spent on the niceties and ordering the coffee. I charge myself out at £700 a day plus expenses. I give my services to the LAA gratis. The members (including me) pay for the services the association provides generally speaking in poportion to what we use. For an unusual fleet-wide airworthiness event that is not planned into budgets or covered by contingency, we could put all the prices up, swallow the costs and deplete our working capital or charge the whole amount to the beneficiaries. The route chosen was a bit of everything and a token charge.
I suppose as you suggest you could sue. If you did it really well you could make the association insolvent and then the airworthiness or otherwise of our aircraft would be irrelevant. I suppose we could always put them up on poles in the front garden a bit like a Spitfire. The last of the few perhaps.
John
Nothing in this life is free. My solicitor charges me £200 an hour including time spent on the niceties and ordering the coffee. I charge myself out at £700 a day plus expenses. I give my services to the LAA gratis. The members (including me) pay for the services the association provides generally speaking in poportion to what we use. For an unusual fleet-wide airworthiness event that is not planned into budgets or covered by contingency, we could put all the prices up, swallow the costs and deplete our working capital or charge the whole amount to the beneficiaries. The route chosen was a bit of everything and a token charge.
I suppose as you suggest you could sue. If you did it really well you could make the association insolvent and then the airworthiness or otherwise of our aircraft would be irrelevant. I suppose we could always put them up on poles in the front garden a bit like a Spitfire. The last of the few perhaps.
John
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Bill McCarthy
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