Weekend Feild Annuals

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SmartWrenchMonkey
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Weekend Feild Annuals

Post by SmartWrenchMonkey »

I'm a licensed and experienced M1 AME, I mostly focus on small piston powered airplanes and have almost 10 years of GA shop experience. I currently am employed full time with an AMO but am looking to make some extra income on the side. I know there are private owners who would rather avoid our shop rate and I need to make some extra income. I'm not exactly looking to do $500 annuals in the field but I am trying to reduce my costs and passing along the savings. I don't plan to get rich, but I'm willing to work hard and put in the hours to keep owners happy. I'm looking for any opinions on my plan or any mentor-ship I can find.

Tooling, I'm prepared to purchase and maintain what I need for inspections and general maintenance. I think I can recoup my investment fairly quickly but I am also early in my working life, I have time to recoup initial investment. Being in the industry I have access to the prohibitively expensive stuff on the rare occurrence in need it.

Insurance, I think its important and I plan on getting it through a specialized aviation provider. I think Products liability and Hanger keepers Liability might be enough, does anyone have an opinion on Premises & Operations Liability? I also plan to insure the expensive tools I will be transporting to various airports.

Paperwork, I'm comfortable enough with the paperwork through the AMO, and I keep a personal daily log. I plan on keeping my own paperwork in the form of work orders and bills, a copy for the owner and then the necessary log book entries. I'm thinking of using Quickbooks or a similar software for accounting stuff and finding someone qualified to handle my taxes. I plan to keep records and copies of everything.

Travel, I plan on driving a lot but I realize there is a realistic limit to how far I can travel to provide cost effective work that won't overly hinder an owners aircraft. Travel 4 hours one way seems to be the absolute limit. I'm considering either a flat rate or a reduced hourly for travel.

Consumables. I'm thinking of a floating flat rate for consumables that I will adjust as time goes on. I plan on stocking and supplying common hardware at a small markup. Parts to be owner supplied when possible. Shop consumables I am hoping to account for with a flat rate fee.

Advertising, GA is a small world and I'm hoping to rely mostly on word of mouth among you fine pilots. Maybe business cards, the wife might manage a bit of social media but that's not my area. I'm hoping once I spend some time wrenching at these airports I can find more opportunity.

TC, should I meet with a rep to discuss what I'm planning?

I'm missing things, I must be but I'm open to any discussion surrounding my plan. There is a wealth of knowledge here, I'll take and advice, criticism, anecdotes, whatever this community has to offer.
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photofly
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

Post by photofly »

Your employer is (quite reasonably) going to hit the roof when they find out you’re moonlighting with their customers.

No, I wouldn’t ask anyone at TC for their opinion. They’re there to enforce rules, so just make sure you don’t break any.

Third point: customers who pick you purely because you’re cheap are the ones least likely to be satisfactory to work for. See if you can find something more positive to distinguish yourself from your competition other than that you’re prepared to undercut them.
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

Post by photofly »

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SmartWrenchMonkey
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

Post by SmartWrenchMonkey »

photofly wrote: Sun Feb 28, 2021 6:58 pm Your employer is (quite reasonably) going to hit the roof when they find out you’re moonlighting with their customers.

No, I wouldn’t ask anyone at TC for their opinion. They’re there to enforce rules, so just make sure you don’t break any.

Third point: customers who pick you purely because you’re cheap are the ones least likely to be satisfactory to work for. See if you can find something more positive to distinguish yourself from your competition other than that you’re prepared to undercut them.
I'm hoping to travel to surrounding airports to hopefully minimize the possibility of stealing customers but I am concerned about this possibility. . I don't want to jeopardize my day job but I realize it could come up. Any advice to avoid this kind of reaction from my employer? or how to respectfully approach the situation proactively? So far my employer has been supportive of my intentions.

I'm hoping to lean more on being a fairly young motivated and qualified AME than just the cheapest wrench in town, I don't plan to pencil-whip annuals so there might be cheaper players around, but I'm just not going to do that. I do have a positive reputation in the local aviation community, my entire aviation career has been focused around GA and small piston powered aircraft. I do appreciate the criticism, I realize I will need to work on my "pitch".
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ahramin
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

Post by ahramin »

Are you going to incorporate or register a proprietorship? Incorporation provides more ability to deduct expenses and may provide some legal protection but is much more expensive to maintain. From a strictly financial point of view incorporating only makes sense once you are bringing in $50k+. If you are buying a bunch of expensive equipment it may force your hand. Speak to a tax accountant before making any decisions and find out how much filing the taxes is going to cost you each year.

Insurance, you'll want to speak to a highly experienced aviation broker. They are getting very rare.

Travel, pilots will definitely take advantage of your willingness to travel. Figure out what your time is worth, what your vehicle is worth, and charge appropriately. Don't go broke like an Uber driver.

Owner supplied parts are a huge liability. You have no control over them and this will raise a big red flag with TC. You'll definitely want to bring a good assortment of hardware as well as commonly required parts, especially if you're traveling somewhere to get a job done. Image you have charged $500 to travel to a site and cannot finish the job because you don't have brake pads or a crush washer for the oil screen or something. You'll need to have a very good idea of what the consumables are.

Make sure you have business cards ready. People will ask you for one all the time. I don't know anything about social media accounts but you will want to join all the local flying clubs, RAA, EAA, whatever is around. You need to find the aircraft owners, they aren't going to come to you.

You will also need a relationship with an avionics shop who can do the transponders, altimeters, & transponders.

I think you will find that AMEs working on piston GA aircraft are getting rare. Very rare. The one young guy we have around here is $100 / hour, has a very take it or leave it attitude, and is completely swamped with work. The last time I needed him it took 3 days to get him for two hours fixing an AOG plane and we considered ourselves very lucky to get him that quickly. Normally it's minimum a couple weeks to get anything done.

Starting out you will try to think things through ahead of time but there are going to be some mistakes as you get going, be prepared to apologize and take a loss and work your tail off for free to fix the mistake. It will pay big dividends in the end. Don't take on cheap pain in the ass customers. There are many owners out there who will pay whatever you want and will expect excellent work from you. There are many more owners that begrudge every penny spent on their aircraft and will constantly be whining about the price of everything. Don't let the whiners pay you any less than the easygoing pleasant customers, just charge them max price until they go away.

Consider getting some Rotax training. All the AMEs I meet are either very competent and experienced ones who don't know anything about Rotax engines or complete hacks who have never heard of AC 43.13-1B who are Rotax experts. Find the 10% of Rotax owners who are desperate to throw money at you in order to get their aircraft properly maintained.

I wouldn't do anything like this without speaking to my supervisor first. It may be difficult or uncomfortable but looking back you will find it wasn't that hard and you will be very glad you were transparent about your weekend work activities. Tell them your plans, find out what they think, and have a discussion about what is ok and what isn't. For example if something comes up that you just cannot do yourself and you need help or one of those fancy tools, how are you going to deal with that? Does your customer now become your employer's customer? Can you get a tool rental agreement?
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

Post by PilotDAR »

Ahramin's advice is excellent, so I won't repeat it.

That said, for the most part, you'll encounter two types of GA owners: Unable to truly afford their plane, and amply able to afford their plane. Owners who can't afford their plane, as sympathetic as you may feel, will not willingly pay you for the true cost to maintain it. If you offer to take the work to the plane, you'll generally find the working environment poor - at best a cold T hangar, worse, up to you ankles in mud at the tiedown. as said, when you find you're missing a small part, who covers the cost of time to go and get it. I once had an owner (we were in another country) drive me more than half an hour each way to pick up one washer, and one cotter pin, necessary to correctly reassembly a throttle linkage I'd found done very wrong by the last maintainer at their shop. We picked up a couple each, just in case. They were very expensive, but necessary.

I avoid working for owners who really can't afford their plane as much as I can, I'm rarely happy with the sum of my paid effort, and the quality of my work. As for the owners who can afford their planes, sure, nice hangar, the tools and supplies you could need, and they'll cover the cost of the unexpected willingly. but, then again, these owners usually have their maintenance figured out....
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

Post by digits_ »

Cool!

With a service like that, I wouldn't expect you to operate at a cheaper rate. If you do want to operate less expensive, give the money back as extra customer service: fixing mistakes, only charging for travel if you are there for a whole day (eg don't show up at 5 pm, be unable to finish the job in 2 hours, come back the next day and charge for travel again).

From an owner's point of view, I would expect you to use some of the parts I provide. Not to nickle and dime you, but because I might have some spare parts lined up already. Or because they are hard to source. If you notice broken parts (like brake pads you mentioned), and you carry them and I don't have them, I'd be very happy to pay the extra premium to get the plane going today while you are here.

Can I ask why you want to do this? If it is because you want to develop your own business, then by all means go ahead. If you just want to work on airplanes, you might be able to make a deal with your boss and work for him as well during the weekend for more money etc. Might turn out to be more profitable for you.

Either way, talk to your boss, no matter what you end up doing.
ahramin wrote: Sun Feb 28, 2021 10:36 pm but is much more expensive to maintain. From a strictly financial point of view incorporating only makes sense once you are bringing in $50k+.
Why is that? Incorporating only costs a couple of hundred dollars.
After that, you need to keep track of your expensens anyway, whether you do it yourself or use an account, incorporating or not :?:
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

Post by photofly »

Incorporating means you're insulated from personal liability (if you do it right) i.e. you won't lose your house if you get sued for poor work. But you'll end up paying more for accountancy.

Note that you don't actually have to *do* poor work to get sued for poor work. The lawyers acting for the young widow (with three now fatherless children) of your customer who died in the plane crash are going to sue everyone involved, the manufacturer of the plane, NavCanada, Transport Canada, the owner of the airport, and you, because while you can take people off a lawsuit, you can't add them later.
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SmartWrenchMonkey
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

Post by SmartWrenchMonkey »

PilotDAR wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 5:24 am Ahramin's advice is excellent, so I won't repeat it.

That said, for the most part, you'll encounter two types of GA owners: Unable to truly afford their plane, and amply able to afford their plane. Owners who can't afford their plane, as sympathetic as you may feel, will not willingly pay you for the true cost to maintain it. If you offer to take the work to the plane, you'll generally find the working environment poor - at best a cold T hangar, worse, up to you ankles in mud at the tiedown. as said, when you find you're missing a small part, who covers the cost of time to go and get it. I once had an owner (we were in another country) drive me more than half an hour each way to pick up one washer, and one cotter pin, necessary to correctly reassembly a throttle linkage I'd found done very wrong by the last maintainer at their shop. We picked up a couple each, just in case. They were very expensive, but necessary.

I avoid working for owners who really can't afford their plane as much as I can, I'm rarely happy with the sum of my paid effort, and the quality of my work. As for the owners who can afford their planes, sure, nice hangar, the tools and supplies you could need, and they'll cover the cost of the unexpected willingly. but, then again, these owners usually have their maintenance figured out....
Well we have all been ankle deep in mud on an annual. I dont love it, but I still want that job. Cold hangers, shaky docks, I'll wrench suspended off the edge of a cliff if that's what it takes to get the job done.
I plan to keep sufficient stocks of hardware and consumables but I'm certain, at some point, I will also spend a few hours looking for a cotter pin. I'm not perfect, and I dont plan to be perfect.

Have you been in the situation of an owner refusing to pay a bill before? I have some concerns about collecting payments and have been considering accepting CC. It will cost a bit to do but might minimize some risk. What do you think?
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

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photofly wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 7:53 am Incorporating means you're insulated from personal liability (if you do it right) i.e. you won't lose your house if you get sued for poor work. But you'll end up paying more for accountancy.
That's true, but unfortunately he's signing off the airplane in his personal capacity so his corporation, and the AME who signed the airplane off before it's doomed flight will get dragged into the swamp. If you work for a company, it's their liability insurance that will indemnify you.

To the OP:

Why not approach your current employer with your business plan and see if they will expand their business into the market you describe? You can ask for them to pay you 50/50 or some profit share arrangement in exchange for you getting customers and driving that segment of the business. This way, you avoid the duty of loyalty hassles (even if your boss is OK with it now, eventually once you start making money, they'll hassle you), insurance, billing, dealing with angry customers, expensive tooling, etc. Let your boss deal with the hassles and you deal with what you're good at- fixing airplanes. It's worth mentioning too that if you're competing with your employer, that's grounds for dismissal for cause (no severance).

Not a bad idea BTW- it's probably what I'd do if I was an AME.
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

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Bede wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 12:51 pm
photofly wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 7:53 am Incorporating means you're insulated from personal liability (if you do it right) i.e. you won't lose your house if you get sued for poor work. But you'll end up paying more for accountancy.
That's true, but unfortunately he's signing off the airplane in his personal capacity so his corporation, and the AME who signed the airplane off before it's doomed flight will get dragged into the swamp. If you work for a company, it's their liability insurance that will indemnify you.
It's true that he can be personally included on the suit - anyone at all can be. I don't think signing off the airplane makes any difference; he's still signing off the airplane as an individual in the course of his employment. At root, every act of a company is an act of the individuals who are employees or officers of that company. To that end, he is equally at risk from the consequences of the work that he does during his full-time work as an AME.

The question about an employee's duty of care to his employer's customers is interesting:

Looking at London Drugs Ltd. v. Kuehne & Nagel International Ltd., 1992 CanLII 41 (SCC), [1992] 3 SCR 299
(https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/19 ... lii41.html) it looks like there is a way to structure a waiver of liability between the company, the customer and the employee to shield the employee.
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

Post by Bede »

That's correct. My worry would be insurance. If he does weekend annuals, insurance won't be worth it to work 1-2 days per week on this, so he'd be accepting liability on himself. If he screws up on his employer's dime, his employer's insurance will cover.
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

Post by photofly »

I would say it's axiomatic that he will have to pay whatever it costs for insurance.

Oftentimes when you work out the hidden costs (like, insurance) what seem to be high shop rates turn out to be quite reasonable. As a customer, I would like my suppliers to have insurance. It would give my estate no pleasure to sue an individual without insurance.
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

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photofly wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 7:53 am Incorporating means you're insulated from personal liability (if you do it right) i.e. you won't lose your house if you get sued for poor work. But you'll end up paying more for accountancy.

Note that you don't actually have to *do* poor work to get sued for poor work. The lawyers acting for the young widow (with three now fatherless children) of your customer who died in the plane crash are going to sue everyone involved, the manufacturer of the plane, NavCanada, Transport Canada, the owner of the airport, and you, because while you can take people off a lawsuit, you can't add them later.
I'm prepared to deal with legal issues that will arise. I know they won't be fun to deal with but it's an inevitable situation I should be prepared for. Like you said, I dont have to do poor work to be sued for it. If I'm living in a box down by the river one day I'll remember you tried to warn me.
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

Post by digits_ »

photofly wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 7:53 am Note that you don't actually have to *do* poor work to get sued for poor work. The lawyers acting for the young widow (with three now fatherless children) of your customer who died in the plane crash are going to sue everyone involved, the manufacturer of the plane, NavCanada, Transport Canada, the owner of the airport, and you, because while you can take people off a lawsuit, you can't add them later.
Does that happen often in Canada in non-commercial operations? Most examples of widows suing people that make it in the news are commercially related.

For the OP the threat of it being possible is probably enough to think about legal protection, but I'm wondering from a practical real life perspective if that happens often in private operations.

I'm pretty sure my wife won't sue my AME -or anyone else- if I crash my plane. The thought wouldn't even cross her mind I think. Would your partner do so?
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

Post by photofly »

Hard to say. Canada is not a litigious culture, and lawsuits don’t get widely publicized. Since they are almost always settled out of court, and settlements are in practice always attached to non-disclosure agreements they leave no trace.

I do know of one senior member of the aviation community who does quite a nice sideline in expert witness statements for insurance companies trying to show why they’re not required to pick up the tab after some loss or other; so there’s a lot going on that you never hear about.

Suffice to say that rare events are the ones we insure for, and the fact that a catastrophic lawsuit for an AME might not occur frequently isn’t reason to ignore the possibility. I think would be unlikely the breadwinner in a family would die in a plane crash and the dependent survivors would simply agree to suck it up, give up the house, and the car and move on.
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

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Bede wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 12:51 pm
photofly wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 7:53 am Incorporating means you're insulated from personal liability (if you do it right) i.e. you won't lose your house if you get sued for poor work. But you'll end up paying more for accountancy.
That's true, but unfortunately he's signing off the airplane in his personal capacity so his corporation, and the AME who signed the airplane off before it's doomed flight will get dragged into the swamp. If you work for a company, it's their liability insurance that will indemnify you.

To the OP:

Why not approach your current employer with your business plan and see if they will expand their business into the market you describe? You can ask for them to pay you 50/50 or some profit share arrangement in exchange for you getting customers and driving that segment of the business. This way, you avoid the duty of loyalty hassles (even if your boss is OK with it now, eventually once you start making money, they'll hassle you), insurance, billing, dealing with angry customers, expensive tooling, etc. Let your boss deal with the hassles and you deal with what you're good at- fixing airplanes. It's worth mentioning too that if you're competing with your employer, that's grounds for dismissal for cause (no severance).

Not a bad idea BTW- it's probably what I'd do if I was an AME.
Well, before I read your comment I thought that operating independently would make me a better AME. I want to deal with the buisness as well as just fix the airplane. I want to be a great AME and provide the best service I can. The buck stops with me.
You're saying I can be dismissed for competing with my employer? I dont have a noncompete clause, what's the point of a noncompete if you can be canned anyway? There are many reasons my employer would want to keep me around but like you said, things change. There must be a way to protect myself without turning away work.
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

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SmartWrenchMonkey wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 4:58 pm You're saying I can be dismissed for competing with my employer? I dont have a noncompete clause, what's the point of a noncompete if you can be canned anyway? There are many reasons my employer would want to keep me around but like you said, things change. There must be a way to protect myself without turning away work.
Well I'm not a lawyer, let alone an employment lawyer but non-compete clauses, or restrictive covenants deal with what happens after you leave your current employer. For example, your employer may have had a clause in your contract that once you leave, you can't work for a competing firm for XX years. These clauses are all but unenforceable for regular employees, but are enforceable in situations where, for example, an owner of a firm sells his business, or a senior manager may go and poach customers when they join a new firm.

What I was discussing was a duty of loyalty. This duty is created by any contract of service employment contract. (You have a boss, your boss tells you what to do, pays vacation pay, EI premiums etc. As opposed to a contract for services where you come and go as you please, choose whom you work for, etc. Carpenters, personal trainers and flight instructors often work under such an arrangement.) What the duty of loyalty says is that you have to remain loyal to your employer and work in their best interest (plus a bunch more things). You can't do that if competing against them. Not say that I agree with that, that's just the way it is.
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

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Bede wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 1:57 pm That's correct. My worry would be insurance. If he does weekend annuals, insurance won't be worth it to work 1-2 days per week on this, so he'd be accepting liability on himself. If he screws up on his employer's dime, his employer's insurance will cover.
Insurance isnt so bad, I heard from many people it would be prohibitively expensive but the quotes I have gotten seem reasonable for the coverage. I'm only willing to work with insurance so its a price that will have to be paid.
Thanks for worrying about me, I think I have to be willing to take some risk here but I genuinely appreciate the concern.
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Re: Weekend Feild Annuals

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SmartWrenchMonkey wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 4:58 pm Well, before I read your comment I thought that operating independently would make me a better AME. I want to deal with the buisness as well as just fix the airplane. I want to be a great AME and provide the best service I can. The buck stops with me.
All excellent reasons to start your own business. Not reasons that you should be allowed to operate on your own account at the same time as having a day job.
You're saying I can be dismissed for competing with my employer?
Yes, on the spot.
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