owner assisted maintenance & legal issues

[Metal Master]

I was down to the Renton (RTN) airport yesterday to meet another association member and saw a 1956 (guess) it had a straight tail, Cessna 172 that was painted with a 1997 to 2000 Cessna paint scheme. I love someone with a sense of humor. (note) not the members airplane
My friend has a 1956 tail wheel conversion that we did many years back that has so many STCs done to it that most people can’t figure out what it is when they see it. It is virtually a new airplane. He was with me and seeing the airplane with the paint job sparked a conversation about buying the older airplanes Cessna 170,s and 172 straight tails and modernizing them and restoring them. The discussion went in many directions. But hurts my heart a lot less to think about modernizing a straight tail Cessna 172 than modernizing a Cessna 170. Outside of doing the things that make sense like heavier brakes and axels for example I always think if your airplane is in good condition and you want more HP, Lift, Cruise speed, etc, better to buy a different airplane than modify what you have. But then Steve’s much modified 172 is real cool.
However it concerns me when I take a close look at older aluminum aircraft and see things that scare the **** out of me. I know from experience of doing estimates on broken, damaged, or ground looped aircraft that the costs of repairs exceed the value of these older airplanes very quickly. That the owners discover that there pride & joy is under insured and that damage that was at one time reasonable to repair now exceeds the value of the airplane.
That is why there is a 170 fuselage in my shop being rebuilt. If I were to include my labor in what I am doing especially at normal shop rates the aircraft would have to be sold at over $50,000 to recover from what is being spent on the aircraft. In the process of disassembling the 170A and another Cessna 172 C that I am currently working I keep finding additional hidden damage & wear that would constitute safety of flight issues if left undetected. The only way to discover some of theses issues is when the aircraft is being disassembled in an area because of a component failure or other unrelated damage or repair.
This leads me to believe that our airplanes are undervalued. It gives me concern that someone purchases an older airplane because of its lower price and then under maintains an already poorly maintained aircraft.
I think it is important that owners of older aircraft to put on there best seeing eyeballs and get involved in looking at the detail parts of there own airplanes. This is probably best underlined by words such as I just finished fixing the squawks for my aircraft experiencing the Annual inspection from H---. I know I do not like hearing such things after I have done an annual inspection for some one that has a lot of defects that need to be resolved before the aircraft can be deemed airworthy and then being made to feel by the owner that I am somehow holding their aircraft hostage. A owner will be well served by taking the extra measures to remove the parts such as the vertical fin and stabilizer to look down inside of the tail section of there 170’s and inspect those parts of the airplane not normally looked during an annual inspection. Get a close look at the brake cylinder attachment for example. As much as associations like the IC170A has information available it is getting more important that as these aircraft get older that the old issues be looked at again. I know many A&P’s who refuse to let an owner help maintain an aircraft. Many times the mechanic is well justified in thinking this way. An example in the simplest form is an owner who opens and closes an aircraft for inspection and then when he installs the screws in the wing panels puts 8-32 screws in 10-32 holes or sheet metal screws in machine thread holes. Believe me the A&P will be held responsible for this by any one who finds it later. Which is why when I am making a logbook entry where an owner helps work on the aircraft that I will state that the owner assisted, performed or completed a task under my supervision. Under stand that as the A&P I am still responsible for the work performed by the owner. That as an IA I have a higher responsibility than that of an A&P or Owner working under my supervision and that if the owner works on the aircraft with out supervision between the periods that I have supervised the work and performs an undocumented or un-airworthy repair and then under later investigation any one previously having worked on the aircraft can be held responsible for that work performed. Yet I work with some owners of aircraft who though they do not have a mechanic license, I think are more qualified to work on there own aircraft than an A&P that is licensed to do so.
I do not really believe that just because an aircraft has had major airframe repair work performed that it devalues the aircraft. Often times it means that during the repair work that a more detailed inspection and sometimes even better work than what was performed by the manufacturer has been accomplished. Of course we all now that this sort of thing needs to be looked at carefully. Some times improper, wrong or no documentation accompanies such work. But this in and of its self does not mean that it was poor work. It might be worth getting the paper work straightened out. The problem comes about having to pay for and research such issues, which can be hard to estimate.
What I have said is that I like older airplanes, the owners need to be involved in there maintenance, unless they have large pocket books, but that they still need to know the condition of there aircraft.
Well so much for this rambling rant.

Jim

[N1478D]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for posting your thoughts - I surely agree with your statements!

The United States has more lawyers than all of the other countries in the world combined. If accountability was accurately done, it would be ok for an owner to kill himself and the passengers without dragging the mechanics, inspectors, manufactures, etc thru the court process after improper maintenance/repair had been done - either improperly repaired or maintained by the owner. IMHO, it's the lawyers that have sold this country down the river so they can fill their pockets, and people who use the lawyers to fill their own pockets. Example, lady pours hot coffee on herself and sues McDonalds - if that's not a true story, there's plenty similar enough to work. Wonder what would be needed of all of us to fix the legal problem so that mechanics, inspectors, and manufactures can concentrate on what's needed vs CYAing, and the idiot onwers would eventually take care of that population on their own.

[GAHorn]

Just to play "devil's advocate" I'd point out there'd be no safety belts in cars, smoke detectors in hotel rooms, or engineering sign-offs on public buildings if there were no personal injury lawyers.

[N1478D]

Just to play "devil's advocate" I'd point out there'd be no safety belts in cars, smoke detectors in hotel rooms, or engineering sign-offs on public buildings if there were no personal injury lawyers.

And, if you have enough money to hire the right lawyer you can get away with murder, would we dare mention Orange Juice Simpson! It's because lawyers are protecting criminals that we have to wear seat belts and lock our cars everywhere we go. If the criminals didn't have the rights that they have they wouldn't be on the highways causing so many damn accidents and when they stole our horse(car) we could shoot the hell out of them without getting sued and in more trouble than the thief is in. Lawyers are not the reason good people do good engineering and good inventors invent good things like seat belts and smoke detectors. Lawyers are the reason that car insurance, home insurance, theft insurance, health insurance, etc are outrageously high. Appeals and more appeals, professional witnessess, loopholes, come on George - the only part of your statement that makes sense is the word DEVIL.

[N1478D]

I treasure our policemen and firemen. I am only using the following example because it fits so well, not because of any negative feelings towards policemen. Every once in a while there is a policeman who has that job not because he wants to protect citizens, but because he gets to wear a gun and it makes him feel big and important. As a professional group, other policemen manage that type of problem and weed out those undesireables. As a professional group, lawyers do not weed out the undesireables, they promote them to judges and into politics. They become stars and have celebrity type status. Within thier professional group they win national acclaim when something like O J Simpson happens. They have proven that they know how to beat the system and win under any circumstances regardless of the cost to society.

But, like any group, not every single person in the group is bad. My comments have been towards the lawyer profession as a group, not towards any individual.

[Metal Master]

Well this took an interesting turn. Having suffered the vagaries of bad attorney and also had a good attorney on more than one occasion save my bacon, in one case with the FAA. It cost me some $ but in the end it was worth it and the world did not stop turning.
I do not like the form of litigation prone society that we live in. Its is as if we have fostered a society that believes nothing bad should ever happen to us and if it does it is somebody else’s fault and I gonna get that guy.
Four weeks ago I was hit head on while driving 15 miles an hour in my shop truck, on my way to work on a customer’s airplane. The car that hit me was speeding, had been presumably stolen, (it was hot wired). It crossed the double yellow lines and ran straight into me. My shop van has been disabled, the other car was totaled and I was fortunately not injured. The two occupants of the other car took of running as soon as their car hit the brick wall on the other side of the road and the engine quit. I was struggling to get my now steering restricted truck to the side of the road as I was now sitting in the lane on a blind corner. When I got out of the truck all I could see was a---- & e----- two blocks away. I had my Cell phone and hands free head set on so immediately dialed 911. The officer taking the call got the cross street wrong. When I called he thought I said First Street when I said Fifth Street. Anyway the police dispatched several squad cars and actually caught up with the guy who I think was in the passenger seat about four blocks away. They took me over in their squad car to identify the guy who I never actually saw except for the a---- & e------ part of the two guy’s departure. I could not positively identify the guy in good concise even though the police told me he had just gotten out of prison.
The results are that I got a letter from the police that they had finished their investigation and that if I wanted to pursue the matter further that I would have to go after the owner of the car in civil court as the accident is a civil matter not an issue for police investigation. You might wonder why didn’t they take finger prints?
I have to pay the deductible on my insurance. I have lost to weeks of work because I had to unload my snap on toolbox, press break, welders, compressor, and all of my aircraft parts and hardware out of the truck so that it could go the shop for axel frame & body repairs. I have not got the truck back yet. I could hire a lawyer, do my own investigation waist time and probably discover that I had made an enemy that is still living in the community who will come to my house to seek revenge in some way because I went after him. Or not, at the very least I will loose more time $ chasing around in circles so that the attorney’s can make more $. This is what some of them live for.
The insurance company will take the information put a lean on the car owners drivers license and insurance. The owner who may or may not be associated with the two who ran away, but you can be sure he will say the car was stolen and the trail ends.
I pay my deductible, take some time off to work on my 170 and be thankful I am alive and warm.
But I owe my Bacon to the attorney’s and believe they were every penny I paid them.
Jim

[GAHorn]

previously posted - "It's because lawyers are protecting criminals that we have to wear seat belts and lock our cars everywhere we go."

So,...am I to assume you are in favor of a law that would deny "criminals" legal representation? (And would you be the person to decide who those "criminals" are beforehand? Wow. We could toss out the entire justice system.)

So-called "tort reform" is a current hot-topic. Lots of folks seem to be in favor of it. According to those proponents, all (or nearly all) lawyers are bad, and the worst of the lot are those "personal injury" or trial-lawyers.
Recently Texas passed a new law, referred to as "Proposition 12" which limited personal injury claims against doctors, ...the so-called medical malpractice suits....., to only $250K in "non-economic" damages. It passed wildly supported by doctors and the current crop of politicians and vigorously opposed by trial lawyers.
The supporters of Prop-12 (such as my own doctor) say that the reason it is needed is because mal-practice suits have driven their liability insurance rates up so high that they cannot provide medical services at a reasonable price, and therefore limits on jury awards such as "punitive" damages must be set. Prop-12 is their answer.
It sounded good. It passed. Now the only "non-economic" awards that can be made are limited to $250K and everyone thinks that's OK because "economic" damages are still not limited.
But here's what's wrong with that thinking: It favors the rich over the poor. (The U.S. constitution was supposed to guarantee access to the courts to all citizens. Prop-12 defeats that guarantee. And strangely enough, it was the common citizen...the one's who complain they can't get legal representation...who predominately voted for Prop-12. Go figure.) How does it deny legal representation to the poor? Because now only the rich can pay lawyer retainer fees up front. No lawyer will take a contingency case when all he can get paid for his work/expenses is so limited. Next time anyone of us needs a lawyer....guess what our chances are?
Think about this.
Children and the elderly, being unemployed or lowly paid, are the ones who suffer "non-economic" damages. That's the ONLY kind of damages they have! A child who is horribly burned for life with debilitating scars and muscle-damage and therefore will never be able to complete and education and obtain a good job.....only HAS non-economic damages. Not only that, the child/elderly person also hasn't the necessary capital or resources to put up "front money" to hire a lawyer. They MUST rely on a lawyer taking their case on a "contingency". But since the "punitive or non-economic" damage award is held so low,...very few lawyers will take such a case on a contingency. Such cases sometimes take YEARS to settle, and no lawyer can afford to devote that kind of time to a case paying so little which requires so much work and in which he may face hordes of corporate attorneys with virutally limitless funds to fight the case.
Ford Motor Co.'s Board made a corporate decision years ago to not spend $14 on a Pinto gas-tank design error because it would cost the company several million dollars over the entire production run. Corporations usually only have money-consciences. They are not real people, they are Incorporated to protect the well-paid executives that make such decisions.
The 14 year-old child that was so horribly burned in the fuel-fire caused by that decision to avoid a $14/per car correction will never have a life, a job, a wife, a child, or anything else we all so treasure. The Ford Motor Co. executives sitting on the board made millions. (And under Prop-12, if THEY had been in the accident, their jury award would include Million$ because their job-losses would be "economic damages".) But the kid can't get anything more than $250K, which won't even cover special training, pain and suffering, loss of life's pleasures, etc. etc.
In other words, Bubba has voted in a law that gives the best legal services to the rich and denies it to the common citizen.

Even so,....the doctors, who thought their insurance premiums would be reduced....found it made only a 3% change in the first year,...which is immediately raised again the very following year.
And the sorriest doctors are still practicing bad medicine that results in the mal-practice suits because the AMA won't kick out the bad doctors. (If bad doctors would lose their licenses, then only good doctors would remain in business because only they could get insurance, and mal-practice suits and liability insurance premiums would both be reduced.)
But it's just too easy for insurance companies to blame lawyers, and too easy for Bubba to believe it.

Result: As of THIS MONTH....Prop-12 will no longer apply only to the medical mal-practice suits it was promoted on, and now it applies to ALL such law suits. Not just medical ones. Now YOU and ME will have to come up with a bunch of money up front if we are injured and need a lawyer, because we will find our "non-economic" damages are limited.

(And by the way,...why is it that we are all so quick to blame juries for unfairly high damage awards? Weren't we all in favor of trial by juries since we came out of the middle-ages? And have we all forgotten we have the right to waive trial by jury if we so choose? If 12 of our fellow citizens listen to weeks of testimony and decide on a case.....isn't that the best group to decide how much that award is worth? Do we really want a judge, who is really just a lawyer-politician with PAC money, to decide how much that corporate contributor owes us when we're injured?)

It's not bad (selfish) lawyers that drive up insurance costs. It's bad doctors. (or other bad practitioners, etc.) In ANY business, let the bad ones pay the high premiums and they'll go out of business when they can no longer afford it. Let's quit giving them bail-outs by passing laws that go against the common citizen.
We'll end up with better providers to boot. My 2 cents.

[N1478D]

Up here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area there are billboards along the highways that advertise lawyers who will get a person out of a speeding ticket. George, I take it from your response, down there in Austin you must have a lawyer that can get YOU out of a slowing ticket.

One really good thing - I never think about any of this while I'm flying 78D! That's probably cheaper relief than going to a doctor who is worried about his lawyer.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

George you have some interesting points which I've never thought of before but I still think there needs to be some sort of tort reform in this country.

I blame the group known as common folks who let lawyers represent them with the hope they get rich. Of course if lawyers just said no that would work just as well.

On the other hand it's a shame honest folk who are really hurt need to sue for millions in the hope they get the thousands they actually need.

The MedEvac company I fly for charges on average $12000 for a 12 minute flight which takes about 1 hour to do from call out to return to base. The medical crew then spends about 3 hours on CYA paperwork. We charge this much to cover the 1 in 3 flights we never get paid for and so the $3000 to $4000 we finally get out of the insurance companies covers the bills.

Wish I had the magic answer. Course if I did I'd have to hire lawyers to make sure I'd get every cent it was worth.

(George this is an interesting line of post but doesn't have much to do with the washout of a 170 wing perhaps you could make it into it's own thread)

[GAHorn]

Bruce: "(George this is an interesting line of post but doesn't have much to do with the washout of a 170 wing perhaps you could make it into it's own thread)"

Actually this thread never had anything to do with wing washout. It was originally entitled "1956 Cessna, owner supervised maintenance..." etc. I did not split it off from another topic...I merely re-titled it to more accurately reflect it's message. No msg posts have been altered or deleted.

(I'd hate for anyone looking for info on a 1956 170B to think they were automatically being sued!)

[AR Dave]

How about letting me re-title it?

[dacker]

Whoo Hoo!! George you just stepped on a hornet's nest in my household!
My lovely wife is an OB/GYN, she practices what we call defensive medicine. In other words she is basically restricted to practicing according to the recommendations and guidelines as put forth by the organization that board certifies fellow OB/GYNs. I can tell you that her malpractice has gone down as a result of Proposition 12, and more than 3%. But that is besides the point.

I believe you made reference to the AMA not kicking out the bad doctors. That is not quite how it works. The AMA may "kick you out", but that won't prevent you from practicing medicine. Now the state on the other hand, can take your license away in their jurisdiction (i.e. the state). What you generally see with "sorry" doctors are hospital review boards, peer review boards, and so on. This is an extremely lengthy and tedious process that happens much more than you will ever know. In many cases there are sanctions, and in other cases the physician will absolutely lose his or her priviledges. The reason you don't hear about this is due to the threat of the hospital and participating physicians being sued for defamation of character or anything else that could be made of making a physician look bad publicly.

Now getting back to removing ones priviledges. Once this happens the hospital and every physician who participated in the peer review process will be subjected to lawsuits for "restraint of trade". It is a lose, lose proposition for every person involved... except for the lawyers. We know, we are involved in this very scenario.

As an example you can look at the recent award to a physician in Dallas for 366 million. I don't know the specifics in the case... maybe it truly was restraint of trade... but no one person, regardless of who are what they are, is worth that kind of money professionally (IMO).

Now, If you want to attack an organization for not self policing, lets take a look at our BAR associations. And furthermore, why are they allowed to work for percentages of the "take", why not a flat rate of say $500/hour, wouldn't most reasonable men say that is plenty?
David

[GAHorn]

Well, Dave, certainly there are exceptional stories out there that defy the "average" experience. Take, for example, the news story only this last week in the Houston Chronicle, of the physician that is the "most sued" physician in the country. He has practiced for over 20 years, and has been implicated in the deaths of numerous patients on his watch in the Bay Area Hospitals....yet the review boards in the Clear Lake area have refused to criticise him for fear of reprisal. Meanwhile he has continued to practice and damage the practices of all who work at the same hospital.
When the physicians (or any/all other oversight groups/professional associations) begin to police their own ranks, then insurance premiums will drop, and quality of service will rise. I still believe the biggest problem is doctors who refuse to censor their own ranks, rather than the lawyers who are hired by either/both sides to represent them.

[dkalwishky]

I was down to the Renton (RTN) airport yesterday to meet another association member and saw a 1956 (guess) it had a straight tail, Cessna 172 that was painted with a 1997 to 2000 Cessna paint scheme. I love someone with a sense of humor. (note) not the members airplane

I too own a '56 model 172 and have put alot of money into it over the years to keep it airworthy. I would never think of buying an older plane because it's going to be cheaper to own. I look at it as it might be cheaper to purchase but the maintenance costs will be to same as a newer plane in most respects.

I just try not to think about it to much

Dave

[Metal Master]

I was down to the Renton (RTN) airport yesterday to meet another association member and saw a 1956 (guess) it had a straight tail, Cessna 172 that was painted with a 1997 to 2000 Cessna paint scheme. I love someone with a sense of humor. (note) not the members airplane

I too own a '56 model 172 and have put alot of money into it over the years to keep it airworthy. I would never think of buying an older plane because it's going to be cheaper to own. I look at it as it might be cheaper to purchase but the maintenance costs will be to same as a newer plane in most respects.

I just try not to think about it to much

Dave

I think most people would approach it like you. I am just saying that an owner should get involved in knowing what’s in his airplane. Older aircraft often have issues that get overlooked buy a shop that is trying to keep the annual costs down.

For example just squirting oil at the pulleys on a 170 does not actually clean and lubricate the bearing. Most of the pulleys on the 170 have brass bushing for bearings and after so many years need to be disassembled. Cleaned and inspected. But if you paid the technician to de-rig the control system and then disassemble the pulleys to clean & inspect them on every system the annual would get real expensive. What squirting oil at the pulleys does do is cause the cable to retain dirt & grime.
My point was that there are issues when a owner gets involved in maintaining the aircraft beyond preventative maintenance and that they are much broader then just the legal ones. Such as the owner gets in the way and may slow things down. It takes a lot of time to show an owner what to do. An owner may do something wrong or incorrect that the responsible technician does not know about. Those are just a few of the reasons why it can be hard to find an A&P who will let the owner assist.
It often costs more to maintain an older aircraft.

At least your post has more to do with what I was originally talking about.

Jim