Loading…
19
Just learned the FAA registry lists over 290,000 active GA aircraft in the US, and most of them have zero full time mechanic watching over them
I was poking around the FAA registry site last Tuesday after a slow shift in Wichita and ran into a stat that stuck with me: something like 290,000 general aviation aircraft are on the active rolls in this country. That is a huge number when you think about how many of those live at small grass strips and private hangars with no maintenance shop on site. I have worked both airline and GA side, and on the airline side you have checklists, planners, and a whole system keeping tabs on every hour flown. On the GA side a lot of owners fly 40 hours a year and sign off their own oil changes, which is legal but means nobody is really watching the airframe. I pulled up a few N numbers from my local field and at least six of them had annual inspections that were due months back. It made me wonder how many close calls are sitting in hangars right now waiting on a busy owner. Curious if the GA guys here check registries before they buy a used plane or if that is overkill.
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
hugo_hayes24d ago
Yeah I have seen the same thing at my field, half the planes in the rows behind mine are lucky to get flown once a month and the owners are the only eyes on them. I always run the N number and pull the airworthiness info before I even bother calling about a plane, it is cheap insurance and saves you a wasted trip.
0