Beyond The Sky: Understanding Your Aircraft's Condition

Vital information from service history to logbook completeness to ensure a smooth maintenance journey.

Before your aircraft ever rolls through the hangar doors for maintenance, it is crucial to dive into the history of your aircraft so you can fully understand its "current state." Why? It ensures that your service events will go as smoothly and predictably as possible. Nothing is worse than finding many unbudgeted "surprises" once your maintenance provider starts work on your aircraft. 

Logbook Research

If thorough logbook research wasn't performed when you purchased your aircraft, you should consider doing that before your first service event. Logbook research will reveal the service history of your aircraft and who performed it. This gives you an idea of the overall health of your aircraft. This is important for buyers and sellers to make sure a reputable provider serviced the aircraft. The research will also report the status of service bulletins and airworthiness directives and how that might affect upcoming flying and maintenance. And much like the CarFax you look at when at a dealership, you'll also see reports of any known damage and how it was repaired. 

Besides saving you time and money by knowing the plane's condition, having complete and organized logbooks will significantly impact the plane's value if you choose to sell. 

Two-Way Team Approach

Complete and organized logbooks help your maintenance provider have insight into where things stand with your aircraft. Remember those unbudgeted and unexpected surprises? We don't want those. A good maintenance provider will work as a teammate with you, planning service events around your flying and helping to get you on a schedule well in advance of the input. With all the information on your aircraft, they'll start planning for aircraft-specific labor and any required tooling, ordering known parts ahead of time to ensure they're on-site before your arrival, arranging for any third-party vendor events such as engine inspections or overhauls, and coordinating with any airframe, avionics, and engine coverage programs.

The Bottom Line

• Thorough logbook research and organized records are vital for smooth maintenance, preventing surprises, and saving time and money.
• Collaborate with your maintenance provider, plan ahead, and ensure optimal aircraft condition.
• Organized logbooks impact aircraft value for buyers and sellers.
• Dive into your aircraft's history and engage with your maintenance provider for a seamless process.